TIME-OPTIMAL REORIENTATION VIA INVERSE DYNAMICS: A QUATERNION AND PARTICLE SWARM FORMULATION

An inverse-dynamics method is used in conjunction with a particle swarm algorithm to find near-minimum time reorientation maneuvers in the presence of path constraints. The method employs a quaternion formulation of the kinematics, using B-splines to represent the quaternions. The inverse particle swarm optimization provides a method to determine an initial solution for an optimal control problem that may use a gradient-based method. The inverse method provides certain advantages in this problem over a direct method such as enforcement of boundary conditions and the increase of computational efficiency by avoiding the use of numerical integrators.