Practical Low-Thrust Fuel-Optimal Guidance System using Hybrid Optimal Control

Abstract

Optimal trajectory generation for low-thrust and very low-thrust propulsion systems suffers from strong nonlinearities that often lead to convergence failures. By integrating a solution- culling protocol into the two-point boundary value problem (TPBVP), trajectories can be solved using simplified models while maintaining consistent convergence. The proposed method incorporates practical mission constraints to generate feasible continuous-time fuel-optimal spacecraft attitude and thrust profiles. Node-to-node shooting errors are analyzed across several single- and multi-revolution TPBVP cases. Due to improved solution robustness, arbitrary target ephemerides maybe considered within mission-specific time-of-flight (TOF) and arrival Δ𝑉 constraints.