Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics ›› 2024, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (1): 195-210.doi: 10.23919/JSEE.2024.000007

• CONTROL THEORY AND APPLICATION • Previous Articles    

Design methodology of a mini-missile considering flight performance and guidance precision

Licong ZHANG1(), Chunlin GONG1,*(), Hua SU1(), Da Ronch ANDREA2()   

  1. 1 Shaanxi Aerospace Flight Vehicle Design Key Laboratory, School of Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
    2 Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO171BJ, United Kingdom
  • Received:2022-02-28 Online:2024-02-18 Published:2024-03-05
  • Contact: Chunlin GONG E-mail:zhanglicong@mail.nwpu.edu.cn;leonwood@nwpu.edu.cn;su@nwpu.edu.cn;A.Da-Ronch@soton.ac.uk
  • About author:
    ZHANG Licong was born in 1995. He received his B.S. degree from the Honors College, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China in 2018. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the School of Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research interests include flight vehicle design, engineering optimization, and uncertainty analysis in nonlinear dynamics. E-mail: zhanglicong@mail.nwpu.edu.cn

    GONG Chunlin was born in 1980. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China in 2001, 2004, and 2007, respectively. He is currently a professor and Ph.D. supervisor at the School of Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research interests include system engineering of flight vehicles, design of hypersonic flight vehicles, and multidisciplinary design optimization. E-mail: leonwood@nwpu.edu.cn

    SU Hua was born in 1985. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China in 2008, 2010, and 2014, respectively. He is an assistant researcher and M.S. supervisor at the School of Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University. His research interests include the design of missiles and launch vehicles, multidisciplinary design optimization, and design software for flight vehicles. E-mail: su@nwpu.edu.cn

    ANDREA Da Ronch was born in 1980. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Politecnico di Milano in Italy, and Ph.D. degree from University of Liverpool in the UK. He is currently an associate professor and Ph.D. supervisor at the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, England. His research interests include aerospace engineering, fluid mechanics, structural dynamics, numerical analysis, flight control, aeroelasticity, fluid flow, and CFD simulation. E-mail: A.Da-Ronch@soton.ac.uk

Abstract:

The design of mini-missiles (MMs) presents several novel challenges. The stringent mission requirement to reach a target with a certain precision imposes a high guidance precision. The miniaturization of the size of MMs makes the design of the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) have a larger-than-before impact on the main-body design (shape, motor, and layout design) and its design objective, i.e., flight performance. Pursuing a trade-off between flight performance and guidance precision, all the relevant interactions have to be accounted for in the design of the main body and the GNC system. Herein, a multi-objective and multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) is proposed. Disciplines pertinent to motor, aerodynamics, layout, trajectory, flight dynamics, control, and guidance are included in the proposed MDO framework. The optimization problem seeks to maximize the range and minimize the guidance error. The problem is solved by using the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II. An optimum design that balances a longer range with a smaller guidance error is obtained. Finally, lessons learned about the design of the MM and insights into the trade-off between flight performance and guidance precision are given by comparing the optimum design to a design provided by the traditional approach.

Key words: mini-missiles (MMs), guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) system, multi-objective optimization, multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO), flight performance, guidance precision