Differential dynamic programming applied to interplanetary solar-sail trajectory optimization

Recent studies have shown the feasibility of differential dynamic programming (DDP) in optimizing Earth-centered solar-sail trajectories. In order to further demonstrate the ability of DDP in the optimization of solar-sail trajectories, this work investigates the performance of DDP for optimizing interplanetary solar-sail trajectories. The...

Many-revolution Earth-centred solar-sail trajectory optimisation using differential dynamic programming

This thesis demonstrates the usability of differential dynamic programming (DDP) to obtain, for the first time, globally optimal Earth-centred solar-sail trajectories. To this end, DDP is combined with a global optimisation heuristic, monotonic basin hopping. The dynamical model is implemented as a two-body problem, augmented with an ideal solar...