GENETIC ALGORITHM APPROACH FOR OPTIMAL-CONTROL PROBLEMS WITH LINEARLYAPPEARING CONTROLS

For optimal control problems in Mayer form with all controls appearing only Linearly in the equations of motion, this paper presents a metho d for calculating the optimal Solution without user-specified initial guesses and without a priori knowledge of the optimal switching struct ure. The solution is generated in a sequence of steps involving a gene tic algorithm (GA), nonlinear programming, and (multiple) shooting, Th e centerpiece of this method is a variant of the GA that provides reli able initial guesses for the nonlinear programming method, even for la rge numbers of parameters. As a numerical example, minimum-time spacec raft reorientation trajectories are generated. The described procedure never failed to correctly determine the optimal solution.