Progress in control approaches for hypersonic vehicle

The controller design for hypersonic vehicle is critical and challenging because of the inherent couplings between the propulsion system and the airframe dynamics, as well as the presence of strong flexibility effects. Many researchers have investigated various strategies to mitigate the coupling by means of robust design methods. This paper reviews the recent research efforts to promote the capability of control design for hypersonic vehicle. Methodologies such as robust control, adaptive control, sliding mode control and other hybrid methods have made significant progresses in hypersonic control. Then, the main challenges of control approaches for hypersonic vehicle are systematically analyzed in detail.