Fault-Tolerant Dynamic Allocation Strategies for Launcher Systems

This article presents fault-tolerant dynamic allocation strategies designed to mitigate propulsion and actuation failures in launch vehicles using a clustered engine configuration. In particular, it addresses engine thrust loss and thrust vector control (TVC) jamming faults during the atmospheric as...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Diego Navarro-Tapia, Pedro Simplício, Andrés Marcos
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-04-01
Series:Aerospace
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/12/5/393
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Summary:This article presents fault-tolerant dynamic allocation strategies designed to mitigate propulsion and actuation failures in launch vehicles using a clustered engine configuration. In particular, it addresses engine thrust loss and thrust vector control (TVC) jamming faults during the atmospheric ascent flight of a five-engine launch vehicle. Three different strategies are introduced: a fault-tolerant pseudo-inverse solution, a convex optimization-based approach, and a constrained nonlinear optimization one. These approaches are analyzed and compared at a linear design point and further evaluated using a nonlinear simulator of the launcher. The results demonstrate that these three dynamic allocation techniques are able to provide successful recovery from engine thrust loss failures (up to a certain level depending on the engine throttling capability), TVC actuator jamming failures, and simultaneous engine and actuator failures.
ISSN:2226-4310