Unpowered Approach and Landing Guidance Using Trajectory Planning

A guidance scheme that employs a trajectory-planning algorithm has been developed for the approach and landing phase of an unpowered reusable launch vehicle. The trajectoryplanning scheme computes a reference flight profile by piecing together several flight segments that are defined by a small set of geometric parameters. A feasible reference profile that brings the vehicle from its current state to a desired landing condition is obtained by iterating on a single geometric parameter, and the flight-path angle at the start of the flare is selected as the iteration variable. Open- and closed-loop guidance commands are readily available once the reference trajectory is obtained. The trajectory-planning algorithm is able to quickly generate new reference profiles for test cases with large variations in winds, vehicle energy, and vehicle drag. The effectiveness of the tr ajectoryplanning algorithm is demonstrated by several numerical simulations, which show that the guided vehicle is able to land successfully with adequate energy margin.

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