MPC-based tracking control for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles with input constraints

In this paper, a Model Predictive Control (MPC) based tracking control design method for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles (AHVs) with input constraints is proposed. The tracking controller design problem is challenging because the relationship between flight dynamics and the control input is not so clear, especially when the input is subject to input constraints. Since the upper and lower bound of the constrained function are not symmetric, the anti-windup design method is not suitable. For the tracking control objective, an optimization based reference reconfiguration method is given. Through the reconfiguration, a new reference command, which can be realized by the constrained system, is constructed. A MPC based controller reconfiguration method is proposed with respect to the new command and input constraints. Finally, simulations are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed control method.