The Evaluation of Various Controller Architectures for an Air Brake on a High-Powered Model Rocket

Abstract

In high-powered model rocketry, drag-inducing air brake modules are used to control ascent to reach desired apogees. The Terrapin Rocket Team at the University of Maryland incorporates an air brake module into their competition rocket, Karkinos, for the Spaceport America Cup. The air brake module uses a state feedback closed-loop controller to deploy flaps into the air flow, increasing drag. A Simulink model was constructed to aid in the design of a controller architecture. In this paper, an overview of the Simulink model development is given, including a description of multiple controller types that were implemented and tested in this simulation. This includes a Model Predictive Control (MPC), various Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers, and various Linear-Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controllers. Each controller was assessed for its apogee error under varying conditions and for its robustness to uncertainties. The controllers were also evaluated for actuator conservation. The performance for each category was assigned a set of weights. The final weighted performance for each controller type was computed, and MPC was the best performing controller.