A particle swarm optimization for fuel-optimal impulsive control problems of guided projectile

This paper presents a new approach to a fuel-optimal impulsive control problem of the guided projectile by using an improved particle swarm optimization technique. The problem is interpreted by using optimal control theory resulting in the formulation of minimum-fuel impulse control problem. The formulation entails nonlinear, 3-dimensional projectile flight dynamics, boundary conditions and discontinuous objective function that make the problem of finding the global optimum difficult using any other mathematical approaches. In this paper, an improved Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) mechanism is employed for optimal setting of control variables of the optimal impulsive control (OIC) problem. The proposed approach has been applied in an instance of the antiaircraft guided projectile attacking a fixed target. The result shows the practicality and accuracy of the method for dealing with such OIC problem.