Fuel-optimal rocket landing with aerodynamic controls

Aerodynamic forces are not negligible for a reusable rocket returning back to Earth. How the aerodynamic controls and propulsion should be coordinated to realize fuel-optimal precise landing is addressed in this paper. To this end, a model-based optimal control problem is formulated with the rocket’s angle of attack and thrust as control inputs, and constraints on the controls are included to reflect the capabilities of the vehicle. Precise landing requires the (highly nonlinear and nonconvex) problem to be solved onboard in real time. This ability of online computation is becoming increasingly desired in aerospace guidance and control for autonomous missions. Hence, this paper presents how to solve the rocket landing problem via convex optimization that has guaranteed polynomial-time complexity. Specifically, a novel methodology of handling the rocket nonlinear dynamics is introduced, and a relaxation technique used to convexify nonconvex constraints is theoretically proved to be valid. High efficiency of the proposed method, with potential for online computation, is demonstrated by numerical examples and comparisons with other methods.