Vanguard Flight Simulation

This repository contains a MATLAB+SIMULINK flight simulation environment for the Vanguard vehicle. It models rocket dynamics, controls, and environmental effects.

Repository Structure

Key Components

• Models/
  Modular Simulink subsystems (aircraft dynamics, sensors, actuators, environment, control logic).

• Plotting/
  Post-processing scripts for visualizing outputs (altitude, attitude, velocity, forces, etc.).

• Utils/
  General utilities such as math helpers, data handling, or interpolation functions.

• FlightSimulation.slx
  The main fella, the big cheese, THE Simulink model.

• RunSimulink.m
  Script that sets up simulation parameters, runs the Simulink model, and saves simulation outputs to SimOut struct.

• setupEnv.m
  Adds all necessary folders to the MATLAB path and prepares the workspace

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Getting Started

1. Open MATLAB.
2. Run setupEnv.m to configure the simulation environment.
   • Anytime you add a new subfolder, this NEEDS to be re-run to add it to path
3. Configure any models/parameters in RunSimulink.m as needed.
4. Start the simulation with RunSimulink.m
5. Utilize the plotting scripts in Plotting/ to analyze the results!

Typical Workflow - Adding new vehicle

1. Create new Vehicle "Kinematics" model in the Kinematics folder, following the current naming scheme for variables is a necessity.
2. Create new Aerodynamic model following the current template to load aerodynamic data. There are two implementations, one loading ANSYS CFD results and another loading RASAERO and OpenRocket data. CFD results will always be more accurate but may not have as many points as OpenRocket/RASAERO. The interpolation functons will take care of anything you need.
3. Upload any new motor configuration files to Models\Motor\EngineData
   • The simulation inputs .RSE files which can be obtained for your motor from ThrustCurve.org

Typical Workflow - Configuring new sensors

Currently, this is a hardcoded process... Models\Sensors\Params has some examples of sensors used on the Vanguard V2.0 Flight Computer. These sensors are then configured and used in the Simulink model in the Flight Computer block, and added to the SensorBus for use elsewhere in the model.

Typical Workflow - Buses

Simulink is a wonder to work with, and sometimes requires STRICT definition of recursively delayed signals that contain buses. These bus definitions can be found in the Initialization folder and if you are adding ANYTHING to a Bus, check if there is a strict initialization for it. Currently, the navigator bus is the only one this is required for.