Fuel-Optimal Periodic Control and Regulation in Constrained Hypersonic Flight

Abstract

Acceleration-constrained hypersonice ight isexamined in thecontextofoptimalperiodiccontroland regulation. Fuel-optimalperiodictrajectoriesarefoundthatyieldan11%improvementoverthebeststaticcruisesolution,with a maximum vehicle acceleration of 5 g. These optimal periodic trajectories were implemented using a periodic regulator in feedback form, which minimized the second variation of the cost. This regulator was extended to account for a slowly varying system parameter (such as vehicle mass ) and was shown to perform strikingly well in the constrained hypersonic cruise problem.