Kyoshiro Itakura

Development of a hardware-in-the-loop simulator and flight simulation of a subscale experimental winged rocket

This paper addresses the development of a hardware-in-the-loop simulator and flight simulation of a subscale experimental winged rocket. The hardware-in-the-loop simulator was developed to evaluate the performance of the winged rocket. Two control strategies for the ascent and return flights were studied using the hardware-in-the-loop simulator. The simulation results showed that the rocket can safely ascend and return using both strategies. However, the results also indicated that both the angle of attack and pitch angle should be used for elevator control during the ascent phase as this produces a high maximum altitude. A flight test of WIRES#014 will be conducted in 2013, and the hardware-in-the-loop simulation results will be compared with real flight data.

Design, development and flight experiment of a small reusable rocket that glides using two-stage parachute

This paper introduces the design, development and flight result of a small reusable rocket that glides using parafoil. The mission is autonomous guidance using parafoil, because the rocket must be recovered safely at target point. In order to avoid tangling of parafoil strings, roll control using aileron is employed to keep the ejection door upward. The rocket was launched at an annual rocket launch campaign held in France. The launch and roll control were successful, however the guidance was failed because parafoil strings tangled with rocket due to opening shock. The rocket landed at 480 meters from the target point

Concept and preliminary study on an online flight path generation method using random search and dynamics filtering

This paper introduces the concept and computer simulation results of a flight path generation method using random search and dynamics filtering. The objective of research is online flyable trajectory generation for aerial exploration in a complex environment that has enormous obstacles and/or way points. Conventional path generation methods utilize SQP, GA and so on. They attempt to satisfy global optimality, dynamic correctness and obstacle avoidance simultaneously. However, most of the search nodes will fail to fly due to numerous obstacles and be wasted. Therefore, the conventional researches require high computation cost. The proposed method resolves flight trajectory generation into two steps to solve in less times; 1) finding path that avoid obstacles, 2) ensuring dynamical correctness. The first step is a random search using sampling based method. It quickly makes a path that avoids obstacles, but the generated path generally lacks dynamical correctness so that aircraft cannot follow it. The second step is a dynamics filtering. The path generated by the first step is modified to be flyable. The modification is carefully set to minimum in order to conserve obstacle avoidance.