Robust control of a yaw-pitch gimballed seeker

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present a robust design approach to realize disturbance attenuation for a yaw – pitch gimballed system subject to actuator saturation and disturbances.

Design/methodology/approach

To minimize the impacts of disturbances in the presence of saturation nonlinearity and acquire desired response performance, the control approach is of double closed-loop configuration. State feedback controllers are synthesized via convex optimization and used to stabilize the inner loops; robust controllers are synthesized via mixed H _∞ optimization and used to stabilize the outer loops.

Findings

It is shown through performance simulations that the proposed control scheme is effective in terms of command following, stability and disturbance attenuation.

Practical implications

The presented robust control approach provides a theoretical method to facilitate designing a stable servo control loop for a yaw – pitch gimballed seeker.

Originality/value

This paper supplies an effective way of addressing stabilization problem induced from actuator saturation and system uncertainties.

Citation

Zhan, S.T., Yan, W.X., Fu, Z., Pan, G. and Zhao, Y.Z. (2015), "Robust control of a yaw-pitch gimballed seeker", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 87 No. 1, pp. 83-91. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-12-2012-0258