A UNIFYING APPROACH BY THE COMBINED ALGORITHM FOR OPTIMAL CONTROL PROBLEMS OF FLIGHT SYSTEMS.

Abstract The use of the combined algorithm based on the hybrid utilization of the forward dynamic programming and the branch-and-bound method for performance optimization of supersonic airplanes is proposed, which makes possible to obtain systematically numerical solutions of its complicated op-timization problems under minimum time or minimum fuel climb. The lower bounds required in this algorithm implementation is calculated by the energy-state approximation with a part of modifications, which produces considerable reductions in not only computation requirements but also storage requirements in the hybrid algorithm. In this paper, some lower bound computation methods is also considered which may be possible to obtain more strengthened lower bounds. Numerical examples and an application to the preliminary design of airplanes by the combined algorithm are included.