Missile trajectory optimization using Steepest Ascent method

A Steepest Ascent numerical procedure for offline trajectory optimization of a surface-to-surface missile attacking a stationary target is presented. A detailed numerical solution, starting from building the mathematical formulation till generating an offline angle of attack control history is illustrated. The formulation entails nonlinear 2-dimensional missile flight dynamics with mixed boundary conditions. The influences of the optimization algorithm controlling parameters are investigated. A new weighting matrix is proposed. Finally, a comparison between the obtained control history and the one obtained by a nonlinear optimal control package "GPOPS" is presented. The results indicate that the use of Steepest Ascent method, to a great extent, is comparable in accuracy and iteration time to the well known optimization package "GPOPS".