Title: Adaptive and modified adaptive control for pressure regulation in a hypersonic wind tunnel

Authors: S.H. Rajani; Bindu M. Krishna; Usha Nair

Addresses: School of Engineering, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India ' Sophisticated Test and Instrumentation Centre, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India ' School of Engineering, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India

Abstract: Hypersonic wind tunnels are used for investigating the aerodynamic properties of vehicles during re-entry missions. This paper aims at designing a model reference adaptive control (MRAC) and modified adaptive control (MAC) for regulation of pressure inside the settling chamber of a hypersonic wind tunnel. MRAC is designed based on the MIT rule for a selected reference model. For improving the performance characteristics, MAC is designed by incorporating suitable modifications to the cost function and control law of MRAC. The dynamic characteristics of settling chamber pressure with model reference adaptive control as well as modified adaptive control are studied by numerical simulations of hypersonic wind tunnel model. Results show that the proposed modified adaptive control scheme is highly efficient in controlling the settling chamber pressure within a very short settling time and zero overshoot with an added advantage of overcoming the chatter effect.

Keywords: adaptive controller; hypersonic wind tunnel; modified adaptive controller; nonlinear system; settling chamber pressure.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2018.089625

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2018 Vol.29 No.1, pp.78 - 87

Received: 26 Sep 2016
Accepted: 20 Feb 2017
Published online: 02 Feb 2018 *

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