Modeling and Simulation of an Aerial Gliding Body in Free-Fall

Abstract

In order to investigate and analyze the dynamic behavior of the air-delivery munitions at separation and during flight, in this paper a complete nonlinear mathematical model is developed for the dynamics of a low drag unpowered aerial gliding body from first principles in open-loop configuration. The flying gliding body model under study has a plane-symmetrical configuration (symmetry about vertical plane) which has the largest lift plane. Therefore, the body can generate a large normal force, a large load factor, and a high lift/drag ratio in the normal direction in this plane. The development of a comprehensive semi-empirical mathematical model of the body aerodynamics is described. The aerodynamic model used in the study is in the form of look-up tables. The goal of this paper is to introduce a development of a simulation model for the free fall flight dynamics and the trajectory of the gliding flying body at certain flight conditions by employing the 6-DoF (Degrees of freedom) nonlinear equations in the AeroSim Blockset and solving these equations using the classical Runge Kutta method (ODE4) with MATLAB and Simulink. Subsequently, this research shall be used later as an essential tool for enhancing stability by autopilot design. (Abstract)