Optimal tuning of adaptive augmenting controller for launch vehicles in atmospheric flight

In this Note, two novel and effective tuning methodologies for an adaptive augmenting control (AAC) system, realized to consistently improve performance and robustness of a standard launch vehicle single-axis attitude controller in atmospheric flight, have been presented. To this end, a methodology for AAC parameter tuning is presented where a robust design optimization (RDO) problem is formulated, and the goal is to maximize a statistical metric that describes FCS performance measured over a set of representative simulations of LV flight. In more detail, adaptive law parameters are tuned with the aim of minimizing attitude error and traversal aerodynamic loads. As major advantages, the occurrence of Loss of vehicle (LOV) events and the issues and burden of the manual trial-and-error procedures currently adopted for the design of the adaption law may be reduced.