Control Law for the Air Inlet of a Supersonic Drone

The paper deals with a supersonic air inlet for a supersonic drone, considered as controlled object. The author has determined inlet's optimal architecture based on its efficiency (total pressure recovery) maximization, using the carpet search method. Inlet's characteristics were also determined and (based on same algorithm) one has determined the effective inlet control law with respect to the flight Mach number. A simple control system was proposed for the adapting of the inlet to the drone's flight regime and one has identified its main parts and described by their linearised adimensional mathematical model; the block diagram with transfer functions was built. A study about system's quality (its step response) was performed which lead to some conclusions, concerning system's using possibilities, as well as for its pre-design.