Aerospace Blockset

NASA HL-20 Lifting Body Airframe

This section shows how to model the airframe of a NASA HL-20 lifting body, a low-cost complement to the Space Shuttle orbiter, with Simulink and the Aerospace Blockset.

For most flight control designs, the airframe, or plant model, needs to be modeled, simulated, and analyzed. Ideally, this airframe should be modeled quickly, reusing blocks or model structure to reduce validation time and leave more time available for control design. In this case study, the Aerospace Blockset is used to rapidly model portions of the HL-20 airframe. The remaining portions, including the calculation of the aerodynamic coefficients, are modeled with Simulink. This case study examines the construction of the Simulink model of the HL-20 airframe and touches on how the aerodynamic data are used in the model.

This section includes the following topics:

• NASA HL-20 Lifting Body provides an overview of the history and purposes of the NASA HL-20 lifting body.
• The HL-20 Airframe Model describes how the Aerospace Blockset and Simulink are used to model the HL-20 airframe.
• References provides a selected bibliography.

References

NASA HL-20 Lifting Body