Robust Gain-Scheduled Controller Design for Air Defense Missile

A mixed linear parameter-varying (LPV)/μ technique is applied to global control of an air defense missile. The technique is a direct extension of μ-synthesis that additionally incorporates the gain-scheduling task and makes the time-varying nature of the plant be explicitly taken into account. By use of the technique, an LPV controller is designed based on a model matching control structure. The controller is automatically "gain scheduled" with respect to the flight Mach number and altitude and therefore adapts to the variation of the missile's dynamic characteristics. The power and effectiveness of the resulting controller to handle the global robustness and performance of the missile over its entire operation range are verified by nonlinear simulations. The research results appear to be sufficiently promising to warrant further study of this approach for applications to missile control.