Advanced Flight Dynamics and Control of Aerospace Vehicles - 535.752

This course is an introduction to the mathematical derivation, behavioral insight into and control of the dynamics of aerospace vehicles. The course will cover current vehicles of interest ranging from small unmanned aircraft, to hypersonic aircraft and spacecraft in earth orbit. Starting from first principles in vector math and conservation of linear and angular momentum in inertial and non-inertial (rotating) coordinate systems we will develop the fundamental equations of motion that describe the flight of these vehicles. Because understanding is best achieved through hands on experience students will develop and implement the necessary vector math, transformations, earth environment models and rigid body dynamics in MATLAB; the models you develop will directly parallel and follow the progression of the course ultimately realizing a full nonlinear 6-degree-of-freedom simulation of an aircraft that we will use to investigate and understand the nature of their dynamic motion and to discover and implement control systems to change and improve their natural dynamic response.