Control for Underactuated Reentry Aircraft in Small Angle of Attack

The control problem for under-actuated reentry vehicle like HTV-2 is considered with small angle of attack.The control strategy for an aircraft with positive lateral control departure parameter relies on strong lateral stability,which declines with the decrease of the angle of attack.Thus,to control the lateral-directional motion in a stable state is hard and even impossible in some scenarios where the under-actuated reentry vehicle,like HTV-2,flies in a low angle of attack.To address this problem,the lateral-directional open-loop motion characteristics are analyzed.The results show that in an uncontrolled state,the lateral-directional motion can automatically converge to stabilization thanks to the aerodynamic damping effect.Therefore,a method of turning-off the lateral-directional control and inviting aerodynamic damping to control can achieve stability.The six-degree-of-freedom simulation show that the lateral-directional motion can be stabilized by the aerodynamic damping,and the lateral position error caused by the bank angle deviation is limited near the zero-rise angle of attack.The control strategy is effective.