Hypersonic skipping trajectory planning for high L/D gliding vehicles

Skipping maneuvers are an effective means of dissipating energy. This paper presents a method of generating hypersonic skipping trajectories for unpowered high-L/D gliding vehicles. Based on the observation that the oscillatory trajectory is associated with the oscillation of the flight path angle, a parameterized sinusoidal form of the flight path angle as a function of the normalized energy is assumed. With the assumption, the expression of the required lift component in the vertical plane can be derived, which provides a constraint on the angle of attack and the bank angle. In order to satisfy different downrange requirements, the magnitude of the bank angle is assumed constant and different values are selected correspondingly. With the given bank angle value, the angle of attack can be computed using the preceding expression. Simulations with the common aero vehicle model are done and the results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented method.