Abstract:
n this thesis, a missile autopilot design problem has been investigated. The missile is of a rolling
airframe type and it is to be controlled with the help of only a single pair of canard surfaces. An
additional constraint is that the actuators used with the control surfaces must operate in relay
mode. A method of designing autopilot for such a system has been presented which addresses the
problem by dividing it into two parts. First part is to design a continuous mode, dual-channel
autopilot that is supposed to provide appropriate control when applied on a dual-channel
controlled, rolling airframe. The second part is to develop a transformation that would convert
this dual-channel control command into a single channel control command which when applied
to a single channel controlled airframe would produce the same control force in average over a
spin cycle sense. Such a transformation is presented. Autopilot design is carried out using this
approach and design is validated through computer simulations with a 6-DOF missile model.
