Simulation of a 6DOF Nonlinear Missile

Recently, it is witnessed a significant increase in the number of controlled missiles for various purposes and specifically for launching satellites. To validate the performance of an air vehicle and to carry out the designing process of the controller and stabilizer, missiles need to be accurately modeled and simulated. The literature is very meager in the simulation of missiles using 6DOF model. Therefore, this project simulates the missile using 6DOF by Simulink. To perform the simulation, dynamical equations using Newton’s second law were derived and then simulated term by term using MATLAB. The resulted dynamical equations were a set of nonlinear time-invariant and coupled differential equations. The missile thrust and inertia tensor were defined using tabular data which function of time, while the aerodynamics and stability derivatives were also determined by tables that function to Mach’s number, angle of attack, and sideslip angles. The simulation process was validated by comparing the resulted trajectory for a case study with a similar one found in the literature. The comparison showed a good agreement. The resulted simulator allowed to design and tune of a PID controller using the Ziegler-Nichols method. This approach showed high flexibility and efficiency in finding missile trajectory and designing controller and stabilizer.