Missile Flight Simulation Using Multi-Fidelity Surrogate Aerodynamic Models
Date of Award
5-5-2024
Degree Name
M.S. in Aerospace Engineering
Department
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Advisor/Chair
Markus Rumpfkeil
Abstract
Modeling and simulation is widely used within the aerospace industry to inform technology development, acquisition, and operations and sustainment decisions. Accurate simulation of a system's performance is critical for ensuring operationally relevant solutions are delivered on time and within budget constraints. High-fidelity five or six degree-of-freedom representations of platforms of interest are often required, resulting in significant effort to generate the aerodynamic databases for flight simulation. Missile Data Compendium (DATCOM) is a commonly used tool for building aerodynamic databases, but the tool loses accuracy for novel vehicle configurations and high angle of attack flight conditions. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools address many of these issues. However, the computational burden imposed by CFD prevents this approach from generating full envelope aerodynamic databases for most applications without access to high performance computing resources. Surrogate models are gaining use within the engineering community as a way to meet the demands for higher-fidelity analyses while balancing limitations imposed by available computational resources. Multi-fidelity surrogate aerodynamic models provide a means to bring together Missile DATCOM and CFD to improve the aerodynamic database with a manageable computational burden. The goal of this research was to study the improvement of CFD compared to Missile DATCOM for several reference geometries, generate multi-fidelity surrogate aerodynamics models, and explore the impact of the improved aerodynamics models in the context of missile flight simulation. Multi-fidelity surrogate aerodynamic models of the axial force, normal force, and pitching moment coefficients for a range of Mach numbers, angles of attack, and deflections were successfully generated. Closed-loop missile responses to step acceleration commands highlighted potential limitations of the approach when used with a traditional three-loop autopilot. The multi-fidelity surrogates were used with a robust control autopilot formulation to ensure a stable system response at three flight conditions.
Keywords
Flight simulation, computational aerodynamics, CFD, autopilot
Rights Statement
Copyright 2024, author
Recommended Citation
Joyce, Eric R., "Missile Flight Simulation Using Multi-Fidelity Surrogate Aerodynamic Models" (2024). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 7587.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/graduate_theses/7587
