*

School of Automation School of Automation

Shanghai Aerospace Systems Nanjing University of Science and
Nanjing University of Science and
Engineering Institute Technology
Technology
Shanghai, China Nanjing, China
Nanjing, China
1848427834@qq.com qlongjun@njust.edu.cn
1814025016@qq.com

School of Energy and Power Engineering School of Energy and Power Engineering
Nanjing University of Science and Technology Nanjing University of Science and Technology
Nanjing, China Nanjing, China
hongyang@mail.njust.edu.cn 1051303365@qq.com

design and control performance test of autopilot.

ABSTRACT
When the three-loop autopilot parameters designed by linear CCS CONCEPTS
systems are used on the actual nonlinear system, the actual flight • Establish dynamics model • Autopilot parameter design •
control performance is often inconsistent with the design Autopilot performance test
specifications. Therefore it is necessary to construct a simulation
environment close to the actual flight conditions to perform KEYWORDS
further performance tests on the designed autopilot.
Ballistic feature point, Aerodynamic environment, Missile
The propose of this paper is to give a simulation method of autopilot, Performance test, Matlab simulation
autopilot performance test based on aerodynamic environment
which uses the ballistic feature points to construct the simulation 1 Introduction
environment and determine the initial flight conditions. The
The missile autopilot[1] is an important part of the missile
matlab software is used to solve the ballistic equation. Combining
guidance control system. Its performance is directly related to the
with the non-linear constraints such as angle of attack and
stability and hit accuracy of the missile. When designing an
rudder deflection angle, the attitude stabilization process and
autopilot, for a general missile or an aircraft with a good
overload tracking performance of missile under the action of
aerodynamic layout, the time domain performance index and
autopilot are analyzed to evaluate the control performance of
frequency domain performance index[2,3] of the system at the
autopilot. Finally, by comparing the simulation results between
feature point is usually used as the basis for judging the actual
aerodynamic and static environments, it is shown that this
control performance of the autopilot. For the rocket sub-class or
method can not only get the overload command adjustment time
other controlled objects with poor aerodynamic
closer to the actual flight, but also get the system stability margin
characteristics[4,5], the time domain and frequency domain
which varies with the angle of attack, so as to analyze the
characteristics of the system at the feature point alone cannot
stability changes in the process of attitude adjustment. The
fully meet the requirements of the overall performance analysis
difference between the practical application effect and design
of the autopilot and explain the difference between the actual
index of autopilot from two aspects of parameter design and non-
flight control effect of the autopilot and the design specifications.
linear constraints at specific angle of attack is explained by this
When the ballistic feature points selected for the design of the
paper, thus providing a new and effective method for theoretical
autopilot are determined, the angle of attack, Mach number and
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or
classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or aerodynamic parameters corresponding to the feature points are
distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and also uniquely determined. Actually the angle of attack of the
the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned
by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To
body at the same feature point may not be unique in the actual
copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires flight trajectory. Due to the adjustment of the attitude, the basic
prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from aerodynamic parameters that make up the transfer function
Permissions@acm.org.
CSAE 2019, October 22–24, 2019, Sanya, China coefficient of the projectile also change. Therefore the autopilot
© 2019 Association for Computing Machinery. time domain and frequency domain indicators reflect only the
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6294-8/19/10$15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3331453.3361287 stability and tracking performance of the missile when
CSAE2019, October 2019, Sanya, China
simulation environment is static and can not truly reflect the
dynamic response process of the system at the feature points.
In order to reflect the control performance of the same
autopilot under different projectile states at the same ballistic
feature point, in this paper, an automatic pilot performance test
simulation method based on aerodynamic environment is
proposed to directly reflect the dynamic control performance of
the autopilot through the dynamic characteristics of the missile
at the ballistic feature point which provides a new method for
guiding the design of the autopilot.
2 Missile Dynamics Model
The dynamic model of the missile is first established based on the
"instantaneous balance" assumption[6] which serves as the model
basis for the whole simulation method. For the sake of
understanding, here is an example of the longitudinal dynamic
equation of the missile after linearising. The model is as follows
 dV
 m dt  P cos B  X  mg sin θ
 dθ
 mV  P sin B  YB  mg cosθ
 dt
 dz
J z  Mz (1)
 dt
 d
 z
 dt
 dm
  mc
 dt
where V is the flight speed, m is the mass, g is the
gravitational acceleration, P is the thrust, J z is the moment of
inertia about the axis z ,  z is the pitching angular velocity,
M z is the pitching moment,  B is the balance angle of attack,
X is the resistance, YB is the equilibrium lift,  is the ballistic
inclination, and  is the pitch angular velocity. The missile
thrust and mass changes are not considered here and assume
P  0, mc  0.
3 Autopilot with Pseudo-Angle of Attack Feedback
The autopilot can be divided into various forms according to the
type of feedback of the system status information. Pseudo-angle
of attack feedback autopilot and attitude angle feedback autopilot
are more common[7-9]. In this paper, the pseudo-angle of attack
n yc
K s K K
- -
-
T1
T1s  1
G a (s )
Figure 1: Autopilot Structure based on Pseudo-angle of Attack Feedback.
Di Wu et al.
feedback autopilot without tracking static difference is used to
design the system control parameters.
The pseudo-angle of attack feedback autopilot uses a three-
loop control scheme (see Figure 1) where GP (s ) is the servo
transfer function and the saturation function is used to limit
rudder deflection angle, Gg (s ) is the angular velocity sensor
transfer function, Ga (s ) is the acceleration sensor transfer
function. K , K and K are the three-loop control
parameters to be set. The damping loop, stabilization loop and
overload loop are included in the three-loop structure from inside
to outside. The damping loop and the stabilization loop together
form a stable inner loop of the control system. The function of
the damping circuit is to improve the damping of the pitching
motion of the projectile by designing the control parameters K ;
The stabilization loop adopts the form of pseudo-attack angle
negative feedback, and enhances the attitude stability of the
projectile by designing appropriate parameters K ; The
overload loop adopts the overload closed loop form, uses integral
correction to reduce the system static difference[10] and
improves the instruction tracking performance of the autopilot
by designing control parameters K . The transfer function of
each loop in the structure diagram is shown below.
The transfer function from the rudder command to the pitch
rate is
K m (T1s  1)
G z ( s )  (2)
z
Tm2 s 2  2Tm ms  1
where K m is the transmission coefficient of the missile, Tm is
he time constant of the missile,  m is the relative damping
coefficient of the missile, and T1 is the time constant of the
aerodynamic force of the missile.
The transfer function from pitch acceleration to pseudo angle
of attack is
T1
Gz ( s )  (3)
T1s  1
The transfer function from pitch angular velocity to overload
is
n V
G y ( s )  (4)
z g (T1s  1)
ny
K m (T1s  1) V
GP ((ss )
Tm2 s 2  2Tm m s  1 g (T1s  1)
G g (s )
 Convert the formula (5) into the form of (10) and obtain the
4 Autopilot Control Paramenter Design three-loop control parameters according to the corresponding
In this paper, the optimal control method based on ISE coefficient relationship. The relationship formula is as follows
performance indicator[11] is used to design three-loop control
parameters K , K and K . According to the structure   1  2oo  2m m
 K  o
diagram of the autopilot, the system is a third-order system with  m2 K mT1
three poles and no zero points. The poles determine the modality  1
2 o oo  o2  m2 (1  K K m )
of the system which is related to whether the system is stable[12].  K  (11)
 m2 K K mT1
Therefore improving system performance only needs to change  1 2
 o o g
the position of the pole. The position of the pole is related to the  K 
 K K K mm2 V
selected controller parameters K , K and K , so it is
necessary to establish the relationship between the expected pole where 0  1 / T0 .
and the three design parameters of the controller, then determine
the specific value of the control parameter according to the The optimal control parameters are obtained by minimizing
desired pole that satisfies the ISE performance indicator. The the ISE performance index when the three-loop control
expected three-loop closed-loop transfer function is in the form parameters are greater than zero. In order to illustrate the
of problem better, the following feature points are selected from the
static unstable trajectory to design the control parameters and
ny Ko time-frequency characteristics are analyzed.
Wnyc (s)  (5)
( o s  1)(To2 s 2  2oTo s  1)

The ISE performance indicator is as follows TABLE 1: Dynamics Coefficients of The Projectile

J 
ISE 0
e(t ) 2 dt (6) a22 ( s 1 ) a24 ( s 2 ) a25 ( s 2 ) a34 ( s 1 ) a35 ( s 1 )

where the tracking error is e(t )  n yc (t )  n y (t ) .

-1.936 86.03 -107.10 0.153 0.063
The following uses the expected three-loop closed-loop
transfer function form of equation (5) to obtain the control
parameters by the undetermined coefficient method. The transfer TABLE 2: The Transfer Function Coefficients of The
Projectile
functions of each loop can be obtained from the structure
diagram as follows:
The open-loop transfer function of the damping loop is K m ( s 1 ) Tm (s ) m T1 ( s )
K K m (T1s  1) 0.2536 0.1080 0.1128 4.9260
Wozn ( s )  (7)
Tm2 s 2  2Tm ms  1

The open-loop transfer function of the stabilization loop is TABLE 3: Aerodynamic Parameters Related to Angle of
Attack
K K K mT1
Gozw ( s )  (8)
Tm2 s 2  (2Tm m  K K mT1 ) s  K K m  1 c y z
mz z
The open-loop transfer function of the overload loop is -0.02196 0.03955
b0
Gogz ( s )  (9) mz z cy z
s 3  a1s 2  a2 s Note: is pitch rudder handling efficiency, is lift coefficient derivative.

 m mz z cy z
where b0  K K K K mm2 V / g , a1  (2Tm m  K K mT1 )m2 The dimensions of , and are all 1.

The body transfer function can be obtained as

a2  ( K K K mT1  K K m  1)m2 , m  1 / Tm .
K m (T1s  1)
G z ( s )  (12)
The closed-loop transfer function of the overload loop is z
Tm2 s 2  2Tm ms - 1
b0
Wcgz ( s )  (10) According to formula (8), Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3, the
s 3  a1s 2  a2 s  a3 optimal control parameters of the three loops are obtained:
K   0 .3145 , K   18 .5076 , K   1 .0633 . The time domain
where a3  K K K K mm2 V / g .
CSAE2019, October 2019, Sanya, China Di Wu et al.

and frequency domain response characteristics of the overload c y  cy   cy z  z (13)
loop are as follow.
mz  mz   mz z  z  m
z z
z (14)

where cy and cy z are the derivatives of lift coefficient to

angle of attack and rudder deflection respectively, mz ,

mz z and m
z are the derivatives of moment coefficient mz to
z

angle of attack, rudder deflection angle and angular velocity of

change of dimension 1 respectively. Because cy z and mz z are
directly related to the angle of attack, the corresponding lift
coefficient and moment coefficient will be changed with the
change of the angle of attack. And when the control parameters
are designed in the static system, both lift coefficient and
moment coefficient are constant.
In order to investigate the control performance of the
Figure 2: Step Response Curve. autopilot in actual dynamics as much as possible, a flight
environment similar to the motion parameters of the feature
points is constructed. The specific steps of the autopilot
performance test simulation are as follows:
1) Establish a missile dynamics model;
2) Select a set of feature points from trajectory to design the
control parameters of the autopilot;
3) Construct a simulation environment based on the ballistic
data of the feature points, that is, the atmospheric density,
dynamic pressure and gravitational acceleration are constant
values, the resistance is zero and the aerodynamic parameters
only change with the change of the angle of attack;
4) Take the state of the projectile at the feature point as the
initial flight attitude and the autopilot is added to solve the
dynamic equation, then analyze the dynamic characteristics of
the missile under the constraints of angle of attack and rudder
Figure 3: Bode Diagram. angle and evaluate the control performance of the autopilot.

From the above simulation results, we can see that the

TABLE 4: Initial Parameters at the Ballistic Feature Point
adjustment time of the step response curve is 0.32 s in the Figure
2, the amplitude margin of the overload loop open-loop system is
15.1 dB and the phase angle margin is 66.3°in the Figure 3. g (m / s 2 ) q( pa)  0 () 0 ()  0 ()  z 0 ( / s )
Although the closed-loop system has sufficient stability margin
and good tracking characteristics, it can only reflect the static 9.794 25418 4 -2 -6 0.0538
stability and overload tracking performance of the missile at the
feature point, and can not truly reflect the control performance Note: Gravity acceleration
g and dynamic pressure
q in the table are constant
of the autopilot in actual flight conditions. 0 0
values in the simulated flight environment, is the initial angle of attack, is
0 z0
5 Autopilot Performance Test the initial pitch angle, is the initial ballistic inclination and is the initial
pitch angular velocity.
Under actual circumstances, the flight speed and attitude of the Using the initial attitude information of the missile in Table 4
missile are always changing. Therefore not only the motion and combining with the dynamic parameters and transfer
parameters of the feature points need to be changed, but also the coefficients in Table 1 and Table 2, the simulated flight
angle of attack corresponding to the aerodynamic parameters environment is constructed according to the above simulation
used in the autopilot design will be inconsistent with the actual.
steps and the simulation is performed (In the simulation process,
Since the angle of attack has the following relationship with the
lift and moment of the missile (take axisymmetric missile as an considering the nonlinear condition constraint, the rudder angle
example) is limited to within 15°, and the angle of attack is limited to
10°).
Simulation Method of Missile Autopilot Performance Test Based
on Aerodynamic Environment
Under the condition that the control parameters are basically
unchanged, the control transition process of the autopilot under
unit overload command in the aerodynamic environment is
simulated. The results are compared with the static environment
simulation results when the force and moment coefficients are
constant. The simulation results are as follows
Figure 4: Normal Overload Curve.
Figure 5: Pitch Rudder Angle Curve.
Figure 6: Pitch Angular Velocity Curve.
CSAE2019, October 2019, Sanya, China
Figure 7: Pitch Curve.
Figure 8: Angle of Attack Curve.
Figure 9: Ballistic Inclination Curve.
From the Figure 4 and Figure 5, we can know that a
corresponding rudder deflection angle will be produced in a
certain period of time when the unit overload command is used
as input in a dynamic environment. The final pitch angular
velocity will stabilize to zero in Figure 6 and the attitude angles
such as pitch angle of Figure 7 and attack angle of Figure 8 will
tend to stabilize to a new value, then change the trajectory
inclination angle of the missile in Figure 9. Finally, the actual
overload will keep up with the overload command. And the
adjustment time of the missile tracking overload command is
0.94s. Compared with the static control performance, the rudder
deflection angle required by the autopilot to achieve command
tracking in aerodynamic environment is larger. When the rudder
CSAE2019, October 2019, Sanya, China
deflection angle is limited to less than 15°, the unreasonable
parameter design has led to the local saturation of the rudder
deflection angle. The adjustment time of overload response is
about three times as long as that of static state. The system
overshoot increases and the performance index of autopilot
decreases obviously.
Considering the linearization range of aerodynamic
characteristics, the angle of attack is constrained within 10°.
Using the aerodynamic data corresponding to different angles of
attack (see Figure 10 and Figure 11) to calculate the transfer
function coefficient of the missile. Then according to the open-
loop transfer function of the overload circuit of formula (6),
obtain the curve of the system amplitude margin and phase
margin of the pseudo-angle of attack feedback autopilot
dynamics (see Figure 12 and Figure 13). Matlab simulation results
are as follows.
Figure 10: Rudder Efficiency Curve.
Figure 11: Lift Coefficient Derivative.
Di Wu et al.
Figure 12: Amplitude Margin Curve.
Figure 13: Phase Angle Margin Curve.
Combining with angle of attack curve, it can be seen from the
curve of the aerodynamic coefficient and the curve of the
stability margin that changes in rudder handling efficiency mz z
and lift coefficient derivative cy z affected by the angle of attack
will directly affect the control performance of the autopilot at the
same feature point. When the angle of attack is stable, the
aerodynamic forces and moments of the projectile will tend to be
stable, and the stability margin of the system will also tend to be
constant. It can be considered that the actual system amplitude
margin will approach 11.6 degrees and the phase margin will
approach 59.7 degrees when the missile passes through ballistic
feature point in different attitude under the action of the
autopilot, and both are smaller than the design indicators. Under
actual conditions, the control performance of the autopilot will
deviate from the performance index of the design when the
missile passes through the ballistic feature point at an angle of
attack that is different from the one of the characteristic point.
Considering the nonlinear constraints, when the angle of
attack exceeds the maximum angle of attack allowed by the
linearization range of aerodynamic characteristics, the
aerodynamic and moment coefficients obtained based on the
interpolation calculation method will be constant, and the
stability margin will remain unchanged. But the missile angle of
Simulation Method of Missile Autopilot Performance Test Based
CSAE2019, October 2019, Sanya, China
on Aerodynamic Environment

attack exceeding the maximum allowable angle of attack may

lead to serious consequences that the missile may be unstable or
disintegrated in actual situations.

6 Conclusions
The simulation method of the autopilot performance test based
on the aerodynamic environment can obtain a more reasonable
command adjustment time and margin change curve that can
reflect the control performance of autopilot as much as possible
during the design period. In addition, considering the
linearization range of aerodynamic characteristics and the
constraint of rudder deflection angle, the stability of the
projectile at the characteristic points is analyzed which can
reflect the control effect and the rationality of parameter design
of the autopilot in practical application as far as possible. In short,
when given an input overload instruction, the autopilot not only
meets the theoretical design index, but also satisfies the non-
linear constraints such as angle of attack and rudder deflection
constraints. Only in this way can the tracking overload command
of the missile body be kept as stable as possible.
Thus, according to the linear system, the difference between
the actual flight control effect and the design index of the
autopilot designed from the trajectory data at a specific angle of
attack is essentially the adaptability of the control parameters,
that is, the adaptability of control parameters designed at specific
angles of attack to other angles of attack, and the adaptability of
parameters designed under linear systems to non-linear systems.
In fact, this paper provides a method for guiding the design and
performance evaluation of missile autopilot as well as for
analyzing the control problems of complex aircraft systems.

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