Large angle attitude reaction jet control for an air-to-air missile

This paper investigates the large angle attitude post stall maneuver control for the agile turn phase of an air-to-air missile that has high off-boresight capability and head reverse maneuverability. Reaction jet control system is used on this type of missile since the controllability of the fins is almost zero when the angle of attack is large during the agile turn post stall maneuver. The attitude dynamical and kinematical systems of the missile are divided into fast subsystem and slow subsystem by time scale separation. The control law for fast subsystem is designed by sliding mode method, and the slow subsystem control law is designed by Lyapunov method, which can stabilize the slow subsystem and ensure the response performance. The robustness of the control law is analyzed. The result shows that the control law can completely eliminate the effect of the variation of moment of inertia and the moment disturbance if the reachability condition of the sliding mode is met. An example of the application of the attitude control law in the agile turn of an air-to-air missile is given at the end.