Aurora Rocketry

MEET THE TEAM

GUIDANCE NAVIGATION and CONTROL

OVERVIEW

The GNC (Guidance, Navigation and Control) Department is responsible for the development of the rocket guidance and control systems, with the objective of ensuring the correct flight trajectory and the accurate achievement of the target apogee. The department activities mainly focus on the development of a high-fidelity simulator and on the design of active control algorithms for movable aerodynamic systems, particularly airbrakes, which are responsible for the dynamic regulation of the rocket during ascent.

FLIGHT DYNAMICS SIMULATION and MODELING

The department develops a simulator to study rocket dynamics, implemented in MATLAB and Simulink environments. These tools allow the complete reproduction of the flight trajectory and the modeling of the interaction between longitudinal dynamics, propulsion, aerodynamics, and control systems.

The simulations include effects related to mass variation during motor burn, Mach-dependent aerodynamic drag, atmospheric perturbations, and nonlinearities introduced by mechanical actuators. These models are used both for the preliminary validation of control architectures and for the generation of realistic hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop test scenarios, which are essential to ensure the correct operation of the control system once implemented on the physical platform.

GUIDNCE and ACTIVE AIRBRAKE CONTROL

The main activity of the department concerns the development of active control systems for airbrakes, used to modulate the aerodynamic drag of the vehicle and accurately control the apogee. By dynamically adjusting the deployment of movable aerodynamic surfaces, the system can dissipate kinetic energy during ascent, compensating for variations caused by wind, motor dispersion, or non-nominal atmospheric conditions.

Different control approaches are studied and implemented, with particular focus on well-established and validated aerospace techniques, including PID controllers and model-based predictive strategies (simplified MPC). The algorithms are designed to operate in real time on embedded hardware, while satisfying computational constraints and reliability requirements imposed by the flight environment.

ROBUSTNESS, DISTURBANCE REJECTION and UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS

A fundamental part of the development process concerns the robustness analysis of the controllers in the presence of parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. Dedicated simulation campaigns are carried out to evaluate control stability and performance under non-ideal operating conditions.

The analyzed scenarios include wind gusts, atmospheric density variations, errors in aerodynamic coefficients, sensor measurement noise, computational delays, and actuator performance degradation. Through Monte Carlo simulations and statistical analyses, the department verifies the capability of the system to maintain accuracy and stability even in the presence of significant operational dispersions.

The final objective is the development of an autonomous, reliable, and robust guidance and control system capable of ensuring accurate mission achievement even in highly dynamic and strongly perturbed flight scenarios.