This study addresses the problem of trajectory and guidance scheme design for experimental free flight of an hypersonic vehicle. The design objectives are twofold. The trajectory should make it possible to evaluate the performances of the experimental vehicle in terms of lift-to-drag ratio, gliding range and stability in real life environment. Its design must also account for limitation in terms of flight corridor and safety zone while limiting the complexity of the experimental design in terms of number of ground tracking seekers and required range and field of view. As a guidance scheme must be derived form the trajectory definition, the expression of the optimal trajectory is established in terms of dynamic pressure and flight path angles, so that it remains simple enough to be embedded in the test vehicle. Simulated results are presented to evaluate the benefits of the resulting designed trajectory and guidance definition. Index Terms-Guidance and control law, optimal trajectory, experimental validation.
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