Title: Novel method for bang-bang optimal control of starship soft landing

Authors: Iman Shafieenejad

Addresses: Ministry of Science Research and Technology, Khayam Research Institute, ARI, Mahestan St., Iranzamin St., Tehran, Iran

Abstract: In this study, a developed method named δ to solve the bang-bang optimal control problems is proposed. Also, the mentioned method is investigated for the starship vehicle of Spaxe-X company. The proposed δ method is based on the orthogonal functions, heuristic optimisation techniques, and the optimal control theory to approximate the solutions of optimal control problems. In this way, three orthogonal functions Fourier, Chebyshev, and Legendre are considered. Also, genetic algorithm particle swarm optimisation (GA PSO) and imperialist competition algorithm (ICA) as the optimisation techniques are applied to achieve the minimum error in the approximation of the δ method. Furthermore, regarding a soft lander problem of the starship, the mentioned method was investigated to get the best time of switching on-off for the inverse thruster. Results show the δ method had high accuracy in the bang-bang optimal control problems, especially for the starship vehicle.

Keywords: optimal control theory; OCT; starship; bang-bang control; orthogonal functions; GA-PSO; imperialist competition algorithm; ICA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMECHS.2023.132521

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems, 2023 Vol.10 No.3, pp.146 - 155

Received: 14 Jan 2023
Accepted: 08 May 2023
Published online: 25 Jul 2023 *

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