Aerospace Dynamics and Control (MCEN90045)

This subject introduces performance, stability and control of a range of aerospace vehicles. It will cover the modelling of aerospace physical systems as ordinary differential equations, and then introduce mathematical techniques to analyse and control their behaviour.

The topics covered in this subject include:

• The fundamentals of flight dynamics for flight vehicles in the atmosphere. This will describe the flight dynamic models and stability of flight vehicles.
• The fundamentals of spacecraft dynamics for six degree of freedom space vehicles. This will describe basic orbital mechanics and the translation and rotation of rigid bodies.
• Other key topics that will be considered are control and estimation methods to stabilize flight and orbital vehicles, an introduction to inertial navigation systems and vertical take-off and landing aircraft models.

MATLAB will be used throughout the course to complement the presented concepts.