Optimal Thrust Vector Control for Vertical Launch of Tactical Missiles

This paper studies how a Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP) method can be used to compute optimal thrust vector controls for vertically launched missiles. Furthermore, the results of this investigation substantiate the practicality of a technique to control the convergence to overcome its difficulties with DDP. The problem under consideration requires the missile to perform a high-angle-of-attack maneuver. This, together with the control deflection limitation, implies nonlinear system dynamics. The optimal trajectories computed represent the performance that is possible to achieve given certain physical missile properties. The relative importance of different missile constraints is thus possible to compute.