A hybrid hyper-heuristic whale optimization algorithm for reusable launch vehicle reentry trajectory optimization

Abstract Trajectory optimization is essentially an optimal control problem (OCP) with highly nonlinear dynamic properties and complex constraints, and a critical part of spacecraft design. In this paper, a hybrid algorithm is proposed for an automatic reentry trajectory optimization of reusable launch vehicle (RLV) without providing user-specified initial guesses and a priori knowledge about the optimal trajectory. The method combines the strong robustness and global optimization properties of hyper-heuristic whale optimization algorithm (HHWOA) with the efficient and accurate features of the Gauss pseudospectral method (GPM). HHWOA works as the first-stage optimizer aims to obtain a suboptimal solution to provide a high-quality initial guess for the GPM, while the GPM works as the second-stage optimizer aims to accelerate the searching process around the approximate solution to obtain an accurate optimal solution. Additionally, to enhance the progress during the evolutionary process, HHWOA is equipped with opposition-based learning, differential evolution operators, chaotic map sequences and smoothing technique strategies. The utilization of such strategies can potentially smooth the flight trajectory and improve the global convergence of the algorithm as well as three OCPs have shown their superiority in HHWOA. In order to evaluate the performance of the hybrid algorithm, complex constrained RLV maximum cross-range reentry problems with three different path constraint scenarios are investigated. Furthermore, more discussions and experiments are likewise conducted to investigate the impact of the parameters on the performance of the algorithm. The results show that the proposed hybrid algorithm can be very effective in addressing RLV reentry trajectory optimization problems.