An H∞ State Feedback Control Law for Launch Vehicles
This paper presents a new design methodology for the control system of a launch vehicle. The method is based on the $H_\infty$ minimisation of the closed loop configuration obtained with a state feedback control law. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a state feedback control law minimising the effects of wind disturbances on the angle of attack and the control effort are derived. These conditions are expressed in terms of feasibility of a specific system of linear matrix inequalities. The theoretical developments are illustrated by numerical comparative results indicating that the proposed optimal design approach provides improved stability robustness, disturbances attenuation and tracking performances with respect to non-optimal design methods.