Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the methodology that was used to design a system identification experiment of a generic spinning gasodynamic projectile. For this object, because the high-speed spinning motion, it was not possible to excite the aircraft motion along body axes independently. Moreover, it was not possible to apply simultaneous multi-axes excitations because of the short time in which system identification experiments can be performed (multi-step inputs) or because it is not possible to excite the aircraft with a complex input (multi-sine signals) because of the impulse gasodynamic engines (lateral thrusters) usage.
Design/methodology/approach
A linear projectile model was used to obtain information about identifiability regions of stability and control derivatives. On this basis various sets of lateral thrusters’ launching sequences, imitating continuous multi-step inputs were used to excite the nonlinear projectile model. Subsequently, the nonlinear model for each excitation set was identified from frequency responses, and the results were assessed. For comparison, the same approach was used for the same projectile exited with aerodynamic controls.
Findings
It was found possible to design launching sequences of lateral thrusters that imitate continuous multi-step input and allow to obtain accurate system identification results in specified frequency range.
Practical implications
The designed experiment can be used during polygonal shooting to obtain a true projectile aerodynamic model.
Originality/value
The paper proposes a novel approach to gasodynamic projectiles system identification and can be easily applied for similar cases.
