Sharif Digital Repository

In [1], an optimal midcourse guidance law for close distances, where the difference of gravity for interceptor and ballistic missile is negligible, was introduced. There, a closed form solution, based on an optimization problem, was found, with very good performance for close distances but degraded performance in real problems with unequal gravity for missile and interceptor. In this paper, the difference of gravity is taken into account by considering a spherical gravity model. A new equation to express the relative motion between missile and interceptor is used to derive a "Near Optimal Guidance Law". The results found using the new derivation are similar to those in [1] but it provides a... 

High center of mass vehicles are likely to rollover in extreme maneuvers. Available works present control strategies to prevent rollover. In these works, however, other important parameters such as path trajectory tracking are not a main concern. In this paper conflicts between rollover prevention and trajectory tracking is investigated. Model predictive control (MPC) is adopted to predict and avoid rollover while tracking desired trajectory. For this regard a model based future error estimation is introduced. The control framework predicts both rollover and trajectory error simultaneously. It avoids rollover while tries to track the trajectory. Simulation results for two controllers with... 

A novel trajectory design methodology is proposed in the current work to minimize the state uncertainty in the crucial mission of spacecraft rendezvous. The trajectory is shaped under constraints utilizing a multiple-impulse approach. State uncertainty is characterized in terms of covariance, and the impulse time as the only effective parameter in uncertainty propagation is selected to minimize the trace of the covariance matrix. Furthermore, the impulse location is also adopted as the other design parameter to satisfy various translational constraints of the space mission. Efficiency and viability of the proposed idea have been investigated through some scenarios that include constraints on... 

Dynamic gait planning for humanoid robots encounters difficulties such as stability, speed, and smoothness. In most of previous studies, joints' trajectories are calculated in 3D Cartesian space, then, introducing boundary conditions and using polynomials, the first and second derivatives of the motion are ensured to be continuous. Then, the stability of the motion is guaranteed using Zero Moment Point (ZMP) stability criterion. In this study, a trajectory planner is presented using the semi-ellipse equations of the motion; the continuity of the derivatives is preserved. Stabilization of motion is attained through using ZMP criterion and 3d inverted pendulum equations in three slope... 

A new methodology has been proposed which offers a systematic approach to use the so called "performance index" or cost function as the basic tool to incorporate the dynamics of the aircraft in the process of trajectory planning. Moreover, by using non-dimensional parameters a better understanding of the dynamic terms are provided. © 2005 IEEE  

This paper presents an optimal control strategy for optimal trajectory planning of mobile robots by considering nonlinear dynamic model and nonholonomic constraints of the system. The nonholonomic constraints of the system are introduced by a nonintegrable set of differential equations which represent kinematic restriction on the motion. The Lagrange's principle is employed to derive the nonlinear equations of the system. Then, the optimal path planning of the mobile robot is formulated as an optimal control problem. To set up the problem, the nonlinear equations of the system are assumed as constraints, and a minimum energy objective function is defined. To solve the problem, an indirect... 

In this paper, the swing-up problem of the Furuta pendulum has been solved by introducing a new combined method based on the frequency response, and the sliding mode method. Furthermore, a trajectory tracking controller has been introduced and applied to the Furuta pendulum; which the pendulum remained regulated at the upward position, while the arm tracks a desired time-varying trajectory. The hierarchical sliding mode control (HSMC) approach has been employed to achieve the mentioned goals. The Furuta system is made up of two subsystems. Based on this physical structure, the hierarchical structure of the sliding surfaces is designed as follows: first, the sliding surface of each subsystem... 

This study is concerned with the general motion of a guided flexible launch vehicle idealized as a non-uniform beam under continuous thrust action. The governing equations of motion are derived following the Lagrangian approach and generalized coordinates. The rigid motion consists of the conventional vehicle velocities (rotational and translative), whereas the elastic motion, introduced through modal substitution, represents the vehicle local lateral and transverse displacements relative to a mean body axis system. A complete simulation routine has been developed, which allows for investigation of the influence of variuos vibrational forcing functions, local stiffness changes and the... 

Our transportation field has recently witnessed an arms race of neural network-based trajectory predictors. While these predictors are at the core of many applications such as autonomous navigation or pedestrian flow simulations, their adversarial robustness has not been carefully studied. In this paper, we introduce a socially-attended attack to assess the social understanding of prediction models in terms of collision avoidance. An attack is a small yet carefully-crafted perturbations to fail predictors. Technically, we define collision as a failure mode of the output, and propose hard- and soft-attention mechanisms to guide our attack. Thanks to our attack, we shed light on the... 

Microburst wind shear is a potential hazard for aviation safety, especially in some crucial phases of flight like take-off and landing. Optimal trajectories could be useful for suitable retrieval of transport aircrafts encountering microburst. These types of trajectories are investigated in this paper for landing phase in two scenarios of escape and landing utilizing the most recent realistic analytical model of the microburst. In this regard, a set of complete six degrees of freedom aircraft's equations of motion is taken in a variation formulation of this problem. This approach is particularly useful for determination of optimal escape or approach trajectories constrained with respect to... 

In this paper, a hierarchical method for trajectory design for cooperative combat missions (CCM) is presented. In a military environment, in addition to physical constraints (aircraft dynamics and mountains) there are threats made by Radars or Artillery. So an important constraint, "Avoid Threats", is added to physical constraints. Major steps in trajectory design are: "Target Assignment", "Path Planning", "Path Smoothing and Trajectory Design". The most important points and a brief algorithm for each step is presented in this paper. Finally the method is applied to special case and the results presented. ©2008 IEEE  

It is well-known that helicopters descending fast may enter the so-called Vortex Ring State (VRS), a region in the velocity space where the blade's lift differs significantly from regular regions and high amplitude fluctuations are often present. These fluctuations may lead to instability and, therefore, this region is avoided, typically by increasing the horizontal speed. This paper researches this phenomenon in the context of small-scale quadcopters. The region corresponding to the VRS is identified by combining first-principles modeling and wind-tunnel experiments. Moreover, we propose that the so-called Windmill-Brake State (WBS) or autorotation region should also be avoided for... 

Aerial tail-sitters have drawn many attentions in recent years. The main challenge of employing these vehicles is to ensure safe and efficient takeoff and landing. The aim of the current study is to develop a gradient-base optimization algorithm for a jet aerial tail-sitter in order to obtain minimum time trajectories in transition flight phases. The vehicle is supposed to utilize thrust vectoring system instead of conventional control surfaces that will pose minimal drawbacks in terms of low speed efficiency and complexity. The time-optimal trajectories are computed using the nonlinear dynamic equations of motion of the vehicle in order to make sure that the vehicle can follow the optimum... 

In this paper, the problem of Optimal Trajectory Planning for a high speed planing boat under nonlinear equality and inequality path constraints, is addressed. First, a nonlinear mathematical model of the craft's dynamic is constructed. To solve a trajectory optimization problem, we can utilize the indirect or direct methods. In the indirect methods, the maximum principle of Pontryagin is used to transform the optimal control problem into Euler-Lagrange equations, on the other hand, in the direct methods it is necessary to transcribe the optimal control problem into a nonlinear programming problem (NLP) by discretization of states and controls. The resulted NLP can be solved by... 

Presented is a novel approach for online trajectory modification of joint motions to transfer a free open kinematic chain, undergoing flight phase, from a specified initial configuration to a specified final configuration. Formally, it is assumed that a nominal trajectory, computed offline, can reorient the kinematic chain (reconfiguration problem) for a given angular momentum on a time interval. A modification algorithm of body joints, based on optimal control, is developed such that for different angular momentums and time intervals, the same reconfiguration problem can be solved online. This approach can be utilised for space robotics applications and online computation of planar running... 

This paper examines the problem of determining optimal sensors trajectories for localization of a moving radio source based on Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Frequency Difference of Arrival (FDOA) measurements in situations in which sensors are constrained both in their movements and regions of operation. By considering the movement of the source and constrained movement of the sensors, a constraint problem is formed which is solved to determine optimal trajectories of the sensors for source tracking. The validity of the proposed algorithm is assessed by two different simulation scenarios and the results verify its proper operation with estimation error decreasing in consecutive steps... 

A comprehensive approach is proposed to manage landing sequences and their associated trajectories for an arbitrary number of aircraft in the vicinity of a controlled aerodrome. The current approach, similar to that of "first come, first served," could consider different types of priorities as well as emergencies. The approach is especially useful to combine unstructured free-flight trajectories with structured ones during the approach phase of the flight A comprehensive cost function considers the relative size of all aircraft together with their relative speeds and flight directions. This helps optimize the amount of fuel consumption while respecting separation minima. Resulting... 

In this paper, decentralized control of formation of a special category of leaderfollower networks on bounded velocity trajectories is addressed. The network of the agents in this study is supposed to have a directed graph with a spanning tree rooted at the leader agent. Moreover, follower agents do not receive online or have offine velocity of the desired trajectory, such as in tracking problem of trajectories which are not predefined or when the total bandwidth is narrow. Furthermore, the leader does not receive any information from any agent and its control is fully centralized. In the present study, formation problem is considered a consensus problem. The controller is designed for... 

It is not common to build a geomechanical model for depleted reservoirs as logging and coring are costly and time consuming in such reservoirs. On the other hand, in regular analysis of wellbore stability, the effect of time is completely ignored. As a result, with time there will be some errors in the evaluation of wellbore stability in depleted reservoirs. In order to determine the optimum wellbore trajectory during the reservoir life, it is necessary to have a model which can estimate the rock properties based on the first full logging suite and also consider the depletion effect. In this study, a novel model is proposed which combines a mechanical earth model, borehole circumferential...