Purely aerodynamic pitch control for high-angle-of-attack missiles

Abstract

This paper proposes a purely aerodynamic pitch control scheme for agile missiles that may enter the high angle of attack (AOA) domain in which aerodynamic actuation is ineffective. Assuming that aerodynamic data is available for the whole flight envelope, a simulation approach is taken to find aerodynamic control parameters, so as to enable the missile's agile manoeuvres. The strength of the proposed approach is that no third control mechanism such as thrust vectoring is required for the missile control in the high AOA domain. The proposed approach is tested on aerodynamic data available in literature, and is shown to be promising via simulations.