This book consolidates decades of knowledge on space flight navigation theory, which has thus far been spread across various research articles. By gathering this research into a single text, it will be more accessible to students curious about the study of space flight navigation. Books on optimal control theory and orbital mechanics have not adequately explored the field of space flight navigation theory until this point. The opening chapters introduce essential concepts within optimal control theory, such as the optimization of static systems, special boundary conditions, and dynamic equality constraints. An analytical approach is focused on throughout, as opposed to computational. The result is a book that emphasizes simplicity and practicability, which makes it accessible and engaging. This holds true in later chapters that involve orbital mechanics, two-body maneuvers, bounded inputs, and flight in non-spherical gravity fields. The intended audience is primarily upper-undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers of aerospace, mechanical, and/or electrical engineering. It will be especially valuable to those with interests in spacecraft dynamics and control. Readers should be familiar with basic dynamics and modern control theory. Additionally, a knowledge of linear algebra, variational methods, and ordinary differential equations is recommended.

This text covers fundamentals in navigation of modern aerospace vehicles. It is an excellent resource for both graduate students and practicing engineers.

Space agencies are now realizing that much of what has previously been achieved using hugely complex and costly single platform projects—large unmanned and manned satellites (including the present International Space Station)—can be replaced by a number of smaller satellites networked together. The key challenge of this approach, namely ensuring the proper formation flying of multiple craft, is the topic of this second volume in Elsevier's Astrodynamics Series, Spacecraft Formation Flying: Dynamics, control and navigation. In this unique text, authors Alfriend et al. provide a coherent discussion of spacecraft relative motion, both in the unperturbed and perturbed settings, explain the main control approaches for regulating relative satellite dynamics, using both impulsive and continuous maneuvers, and present the main constituents required for relative navigation. The early chapters provide a foundation upon which later discussions are built, making this a complete, standalone offering. Intended for graduate students, professors and academic researchers in the fields of aerospace and mechanical engineering, mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics, Spacecraft Formation Flying is a technical yet accessible, forward-thinking guide to this critical area of astrodynamics. - The first book dedicated to spacecraft formation flying, written by leading researchers and professors in the field - Develops the theory from an astrodynamical viewpoint, emphasizing modeling, control and navigation of formation flying satellites on Earth orbits - Examples used to illustrate the main developments, with a sample simulation of a formation flying mission included to illustrate high fidelity modeling, control and relative navigation

This book explores the design of optimal trajectories for space maneuver vehicles (SMVs) using optimal control-based techniques. It begins with a comprehensive introduction to and overview of three main approaches to trajectory optimization, and subsequently focuses on the design of a novel hybrid optimization strategy that combines an initial guess generator with an improved gradient-based inner optimizer. Further, it highlights the development of multi-objective spacecraft trajectory optimization problems, with a particular focus on multi-objective transcription methods and multi-objective evolutionary algorithms. In its final sections, the book studies spacecraft flight scenarios with noise-perturbed dynamics and probabilistic constraints, and designs and validates new chance-constrained optimal control frameworks. The comprehensive and systematic treatment of practical issues in spacecraft trajectory optimization is one of the book’s major features, making it particularly suited for readers who are seeking practical solutions in spacecraft trajectory optimization. It offers a valuable asset for researchers, engineers, and graduate students in GNC systems, engineering optimization, applied optimal control theory, etc.

Compiled by leading authorities, Aerospace Navigation Systems is a compendium of chapters that present modern aircraft and spacecraft navigation methods based on up-to-date inertial, satellite, map matching and other guidance techniques. Ranging from the practical to the theoretical, this book covers navigational applications over a wide range of aerospace vehicles including aircraft, spacecraft and drones, both remotely controlled and operating as autonomous vehicles. It provides a comprehensive background of fundamental theory, the utilisation of newly-developed techniques, incorporates the most complex and advanced types of technical innovation currently available and presents a vision for future developments. Satellite Navigation Systems (SNS), long range navigation systems, short range navigation systems and navigational displays are introduced, and many other detailed topics include Radio Navigation Systems (RNS), Inertial Navigation Systems (INS), Homing Systems, Map Matching and other correlated-extremalsystems, and both optimal and sub-optimal filtering in integrated navigation systems.

Want to know not just what makes rockets go up but how to do it optimally? Optimal control theory has become such an important field in aerospace engineering that no graduate student or practicing engineer can afford to be without a working knowledge of it. This is the first book that begins from scratch to teach the reader the basic principles of the calculus of variations, develop the necessary conditions step-by-step, and introduce the elementary computational techniques of optimal control. This book, with problems and an online solution manual, provides the graduate-level reader with enough introductory knowledge so that he or she can not only read the literature and study the next level textbook but can also apply the theory to find optimal solutions in practice. No more is needed than the usual background of an undergraduate engineering, science, or mathematics program: namely calculus, differential equations, and numerical integration. Although finding optimal solutions for these problems is a complex process involving the calculus of variations, the authors carefully lay out step-by-step the most important theorems and concepts. Numerous examples are worked to demonstrate how to apply the theories to everything from classical problems (e.g., crossing a river in minimum time) to engineering problems (e.g., minimum-fuel launch of a satellite). Throughout the book use is made of the time-optimal launch of a satellite into orbit as an important case study with detailed analysis of two examples: launch from the Moon and launch from Earth. For launching into the field of optimal solutions, look no further!