Department of Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace Guidance, Navigation, & Control Seminar Series: Wei Du, Ph.D. candidate, AER E ; "Dynamical Modeling and Advanced Flight Control Design of the Ares-I Crew Launch Vehicle"

Wei Du

This Aerospace Guidance, Navigation, and Control Group Seminar will be held at
4:10 PM on November 13, 2008 in Room 1235 Howe Hall.

WEI DU
Ph.D. Candidate in Aerospace Engineering
(under the supervision of Dr. Bong Wie)
Aerospace Engineering
Iowa State University 

"Dynamical Modeling and Advanced Flight Control Design of the Ares-I Crew Launch Vehicle"

 The research objective is to develop an integrated guidance and control design/simulation tool for large flexible launch vehicles, which could test different guidance and control schemes and evaluate their performance and robustness. The preliminary study results of dynamic modeling and flight control design/simulation of large flexible launch vehicles as well as the Ares-I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) will be presented. A complete set of six-degrees-of-freedom dynamic models of the Ares-I CLV, incorporating its propulsion, aerodynamics, guidance and control, and structural flexibility, is developed. NASA’s Ares-I reference model and a  Simulink-based program are utilized to develop a Matlab-based simulation and linearization tool for an independent validation of the performance and stability of the ascent flight control system of the Ares-I CLV. Furthermore, fundamental principles of flight control analysis and design for launch vehicles has been investigated. In particular, the classical concepts of “drift-minimum” and “load minimum” control principles are investigated. It is shown that an additional feedback of angle-of-attack or lateral acceleration can significantly improve the overall performance and stability robustness, especially in the presence of unexpected large wind disturbance. For a typical “non-collocated actuator and sensor” control problem of large flexible launch vehicles, non-minimum-phase filtering of “unstably interacting” bending modes is also shown to be effective and robust. Current research effort for developing a quaternion-based pitch/yaw control system for the Ares-I CLV without an active control of its roll motion is also presented.

Brief Bio:  Wei Du is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, whose advisor is Prof. Bong Wie. His research focuses on the flight dynamics and control, especially the launch vehicle control system design. He is also interested in spacecraft modeling, advanced control theory and application. Wei Du received his MS in Spacecraft Design from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang University) in April 2007. And he earned his BS in Automation from Tsinghua University in July 2004. His undergraduate research in the Omron-Tsinghua Motion Control Lab, the industry equipment test, won him the Omron Company’s Student Scholarship.