Deep Recurrent‐Augmented Adaptive Sliding Mode Guidance for Hypersonic Vehicles in GNSS‐Denied Environments

This work presents a high‐fidelity Integrated Navigation–Guidance–Control (INGC) framework engineered for long‐range hypersonic strategic‐class aerial platforms operating under degraded satellite‐navigation conditions and severe mission‐level perturbations. The platform‐level dynamics are captured via a nonlinear six‐degree‐of‐freedom (6‐DOF) model incorporating: fuel‐burn‐driven variations in mass and moments of inertia, payload‐module separation effects, Mach‐ and flight‐phase‐dependent aerodynamic coefficients, rate/deflection‐limited actuator behavior, and inertial navigation degradation induced by bias, drift, and intentional electronic interference. The control scheme synergistically embeds an adaptive finite‐time higher‐order sliding‐mode regulation law with a deep recurrent neural subsystem based on long short‐term memory (LSTM) architecture, enabling proactive estimation and real‐time compensation of compounded navigation/actuation errors in contested GNSS environments. Four mission‐representative scenarios spanning nominal through multisource disturbance regimes were simulated using industrial‐grade parameters. Compared with benchmark PID, conventional SMC, and H _∞ controllers, as well as modern nonlinear filters such as the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF), the proposed hybrid architecture exhibited a > 40% reduction in circular error probable (CEP) (outperforming the UKF by ~30% under severe disturbances), a 30%–35% improvement in transient‐response settling, and a ~15% decrease in control‐energy expenditure. Comprehensive single‐parameter sensitivity analyses, involving ± 20% perturbations in key aerodynamic and actuator parameters, confirmed the robustness and estimation accuracy of the design. The presented INGC formulation thus offers a computationally feasible, stability‐guaranteed, and scalability‐oriented control paradigm for high‐dynamic‐pressure hypersonic flight in modern electronic‐warfare theaters.