Design optimization of velocity-controlled cruise vehicle propelled by throttleable hybrid rocket motor

Throttleable engines have greatly raised the technical performances of aircrafts and missiles, particularly for cruise vehicles. The hybrid rocket motor (HRM) combines the advantages of solid and liquid rocket engines, especially the ability of easily throttling and restart. This paper presents a design optimization of an HRM propelled cruise vehicle to explore the throttling ability of HRM on velocity control. First, a theoretical thrust model is presented and revised through several experimental tests. Based on it, a detailed design process of HRM is proposed. Second, the layout of the cruise vehicle, flight trajectory model and a closed-loop PID velocity control method are developed. The differential evolution algorithm is adopted to get the optimal design result, which is used to analyze velocity characteristics by real-time control of the oxidizer flow rate. The results show that the PID-control has good effect on velocity control performance and maintaining small deviation from the target. The influences of aerodynamic and thrust errors are also considered and analyzed. For different types of deviations, including the proportional and periodic perturbations, the PID-controlled scheme shows a good stability under the parameters' deviations, which indicates that the HRM with the real-time throttling thrust has a good capacity of high-precision velocity control when used in rocket propelled vehicles. (C) 2021 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This paper presents a design optimization of an HRM propelled cruise vehicle to explore the throttling ability of HRM on velocity control. Real-time control of oxidizer flow rate through PID-control shows good effect on velocity control performance. The study reveals that HRM has a good capacity of high-precision velocity control when used in rocket propelled vehicles.