Robust Tracking for Hypersonic Reentry Vehicles via Disturbance Estimation-Triggered Control

This note presents a novel control framework based on disturbance estimation information to exploit the potential performance improvement. Disturbances in the hypersonic reentry vehicles are revisited, and a disturbance effect indicator (DEI) is defined to demonstrate the pros and cons of disturbances' influence on the system. Based on the disturbance estimation, a disturbance estimation-triggered control scheme for the attitude tracking is established. Furthermore, the ultimately bounded stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed. Distinguished from eliminating the disturbance directly in the state-of-the-art disturbance observer-based control, the proposed control switches its structure to counteract or retain the disturbance according to the DEI, and thus is capable of improving the transient performance. Simulation results verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed approach.