Adaptive Continuation Strategy for Indirect Hypersonic Trajectory Optimization

Abstract

Continuation addresses one of the major difficulties of practical indirect trajectory optimization—providing a good initial guess—by solving a series of incrementally more difficult subproblems that ultimately lead to the desired solution. The continuation process is controlled by evolving one or more parameters related to the optimal control problem. The order in which these parameters are evolved is often determined by the designer. If many parameters are used or solutions to the subproblems often fail, this may require significant designer effort. An adaptive continuation strategy is developed using the heuristic path graph search algorithm. The strategy can incorporate cost information from optimal control theory to intelligently search the continuation parameter space for a valid path that avoids difficult subproblems. The autonomy and efficiency of the strategy is demonstrated in three examples where the trajectory that maximizes the impact velocity of a notional hypersonic glide weapon is calculated.