Autonomous Fault Management for Hypersonic Vehicles Using AI/ML

With the increasing need for research and technology in hypersonics, the United States is currently lacking in this domain compared to adversaries such as China, as reported by the Center for National Security Initiatives. One of the most critical aspects of hypersonic vehicles is the ability to perform on-board fault assessment in a matter of magnitudes less than 1 second, and respond to those faults autonomously, as human response times are simply insufficient when a craft is traveling at speeds of Mach 5+. Various faults stem from the vehicle’s aerodynamic stability, aerothermal heating, or plasma buildup, leading to structural deformation or ablation, trajectory deviations, internal decomposition, and communications blackout. In Orbit Aerospace (In Orbit) proposes to strengthen US capabilities in the hypersonics domain by developing robust fault detection algorithms using AI/ML concepts to enable on-board assessment of failures and promote autonomous fault management for high-speed aircraft, next-generation missile systems, and re-entry vehicles. This low-cost method offers the ability to ameliorate and respond to on-board faults at a pace not humanly possible for ultra-high-speed vehicles. In addition, it allows end-users and operators to perform improved quality assurance checks and assessment for post-processing and mitigates the risk of critical communications loss, trajectory offsets, structural damage, and vehicle stability.