Flight Control Command Generation in a Real-time Mission Planning System

The task of a Mission Planning System may be defined as the specification of a desirable trajectory by means of a sufficiently detailed sequence of waypoints. However, if real-time execution of the desired trajectory is required, the Planner must communicate its intentions to the vehicle control system as a stream of essentially continuous commands. If the waypoint spacing is sufficiently small, commands can be generated using a curve-fitting process in conjunction with a tracking loop. However, construction of a suitable waypoint sequence will involve the minimization of a risk function with respect to a set of trajectory parameters. This thesis addresses the question of how control system commands can be generated directly by minimizing the risk with respect to parameters defining control command histories rather than spatial trajectories. A suitable method is presented and evaluated. Thesis Supervisor: Wallace E. Vander Velde Title: Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics