Optimization of the speedskating technique for the straights

The Dutch speedskating federation expressed the need for a feedback system for elite long-track speedskaters that can aid them in finding the optimal technique for an individual athlete. To contribute to this goal, this research aims to develop an optimization workflow that can reproduce realistic steady state speedskating behaviour. This is...

Minimizing Environmental Impact of Cruise Flights using Meta-heuristic and Optimal Control Optimizations

Aviation has a negative impact on the environment. As the number of flights is expected to increase, the total environmental impact of aviation will continue to worsen. New solutions are required to mitigate these effects. Aircraft Trajectory Optimization For Environmental Impact (TOFEI) can help reduce the impact of aircraft pollutants while...

Aircraft Trajectory Optimization for European Flights: Assessment of the trajectory variability considering a trade-off between operating costs and climate impact

In order to reduce the climate impact induced by the aircraft industry, the variability between cost optimized and climate optimized flight trajectories was evaluated. This was done to establish how the climate impact reduction affects the operating costs and vice versa. To evaluate the climate impact of air traffic, a climate-chemistry model...

Solar-sail transfers to Earth-Moon L2-displaced vertical Lyapunov orbits

This thesis presents the design of solar-sail transfer trajectories to a constellation of two spacecraft in displaced vertical Lyapunov orbits at the L2 point of the Earth-Moon system. The constellation provides continuous coverage of the Aitken basin and the lunar South Pole. Initial guesses for the transfers are generated using reverse time...

Modeling stochastic behavior of state variables within the optimization of departure procedures

Spline-based Trajectory Generation for Autonomous Truck-Trailer Vehicles in Low Speed Highway Scenarios

Trajectory generators are designed to create reference paths that are parametrized by time as well as by velocity or acceleration. In the literature, it has been noted that often path planners are the last step in the planning module of autonomous truck-trailer vehicles, which results in a collision-free track. A trajectory generator can improve...

Laser-Enhanced Solar Sailing: Modeling and Trajectory Optimization for Interplanetary Missions

When sunlight illuminates a body, a tiny pressure is exerted upon its surface due to the photons impacting on it. Such a principle forms the basis of solar sailing, in which the solar radiation pressure is used to accelerate highly reflective lightweight structures called solar sails. Similarly, a laser-enhanced solar sail is a solar sail in...

Vega Launchers' Trajectory Optimization Using a Pseudospectral Transcription

Given the current technological limitations, launch missions are extremely costly: rockets are huge, being about 100 times more massive than the payload, and most of the times expendable. The specific cost required to place a spacecraft in LEO is between 10 and 25 k€/kg. Consequently, trajectory optimization plays a major role in the design of a...

Identification of walkable space in a voxel model, derived from a point cloud and its corresponding trajectory

Navigation from a room inside a building to another room inside a building which is across the street consists of three parts: first, the indoor part at the building where you start your journey. Secondly, the outdoor part and thirdly, another indoor part inside the building of destination. As regards to the outdoor environment, a navigation aid...

LOFAR on the Moon: Mission Configuration and Orbit Design

Unperturbed observation of deep space radio waves is impossible to achieve from Earth but could be managed if the instruments were positioned in a place shielded from Earth, such as the far side of the Moon or the Shackleton crater, situated at its South Pole. In order to keep the costs of such a mission as low as possible, the VEGA launcher...

Global Launcher Trajectory Optimization for Lunar Base Settlement

In the past few years, a new spirit for the exploration of the Solar System spread among the space community and reaching the Moon has been set as the first step of this new program. In this frame, going back to the Moon is needed to familiarize with a new way of living in a different environment, adapting to it and testing new technology. It is...

Models and methods for GTOC2: Analysis of a multiple asteroid rendezvous mission

The Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC) is a competition that seeks to stimulate improvements in the fields of mission analysis and optimization. This research focuses on the problem posed in the second version of the competition, GTOC2. The problem concerns an asteroid tour mission, where the asteroids are subdivided into 4 groups...