Observer-Based Drag-Tracking Guidance for Entry Vehicles Considering Input Saturation Constraint

Abstract: This paper studies the drag-tracking guidance design problem of uncertain entry vehicles. With employing a Nussbaum type function to deal with input saturation constraint, an output feedback guidance law (bank angle magnitude) with a high-gain observer is constructed that makes the drag-tracking error converge near zero in the presence of uncertainties. It is also worthy to claim that, in contrast to the existing results whose envelope of uncertainty merely depends on the drag error, the considered uncertainty is allowed to be not bigger than a function of drag error and integral term of drag error, which inevitably occurs in practice. The Monte Carlo simulation is done to illustrate the advantage of the developed method.