Off-Line and On-Line Computation of Optimal Trajectories in the Aerospace Field

. The present paper is an introductory and survey paper of the treatment of realistically modelled optimal control problems from applications in the aerospace field. Especially those problems are considered which include different types of constraints. In the tutorial part of the paper, recipes are given for the treatment of optimal control problems for which, among other constraints, control and/or state variable inequality constraints are to be taken into account. Optimal control problems having singular subarcs and/or discontinuities are also investigated. The discussion of the necessary conditions aims to the subsequent application of the multiple shooting method, which is known to be a very precise and efficient method for the solution of those multipoint boundary-value problems that arise from these necessary conditions. Homotopy techniques as well as the fusion of direct collocation and multiple shooting techniques are described. Both approaches facilitate the construction of an..