A study on an optimal analytical and an accurate algorithmic landing techniques

Gutierrez de Alba, José David (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Tresaco, Eva (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Mortari, Daniele

Resumen: Landing trajectory optimization is a fundamental challenge in aerospace engineering, traditionally approached by optimal control problem formulation. In practice, for Earth landing, the vehicle is subject to strongly non-linear perturbations, such as drag, wind, and gravity. Indirect control methods cannot deal with these problems, leading to large errors, while direct methods require high computation times when perturbations are not continuous. Thus, in this work, we propose a hybrid algorithm to approximate the solution of nonlinear optimization problems, based on the iteration of the indirect control analytical solution of the non-autonomous linear problem. The algorithm’s performance has been studied for the problem of landing rockets on the Earth’s surface and compared with a standard boundary value problem solver. The results show that the proposed algorithm tolerates strong discontinuous perturbations, with very small landing error and computation time.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2025.07.017

Año: 2025

Publicado en: Advances in Space Research (2025), [11 pp.]
ISSN: 0273-1177

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2020-117066GB-I00
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN PRE2021-099561

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Matemática Aplicada (Dpto. Matemática Aplicada)