Optimal guidance for reentry vehicles based on indirect Legendre pseudospectral method

Development of a feasible guidance scheme for reentry vehicles is a challenge because of its significant nonlinearity and multi-constraints. A method for the implementation of three-degree-of-freedom guidance for constrained reentry vehicle is presented in the paper. First, the constrained trajectory is generated by Legendre pseudospectral method (LPM) and then the feasibily of the trajectory is validated. Based on the obtained reference trajectory, the guidance problem is converted into a trajectory state regulation problem which is a linear time varying system. A robust state feedback guidance law is generated in real time using indirect Legendre pseudospectral feedback method. Finally, simulation results illustrate that the overall guidance scheme can lead to a very accurately controlled flight with all the constraints satisfied even in the presence of initial state uncertainty.