Optimal rigid body motions, part 2: Minimum time solutions

Abstract

The time-optimal control of rigid-body angular rates is investigated in the absence of direct control over one of the angular velocity components. The existence of singular subarcs in the time-optimal trajectories is explored. A numerical survey of the optimality conditions reveals that, over a large range of boundary conditions, there are in general several distinct extremal solutions. A classification of extremal solutions is presented, and domains of existence of the extremal subfamilies are established in a reduced parameter space. A locus of Darboux points is obtained, and global optimality of the extremal solutions is observed in relation to the Darboux points. The continuous dependence of the optimal trajectories with respect to variations in control constraints is noted, and a procedure to obtain the time-optimal bang-bang solutions is presented.