On Line Computer Control Techniques and Their Application to Re-entry Aerospace Vehicle Control

This chapter presents on line computer control techniques and their application to re-entry aerospace vehicle control. It highlights the problem of controlling processes under the condition of uncertain changes in the process to be controlled. The chapter presents the approach for the development of tools necessary to perform adaptation in a control problem. There are three phases to this approach to adaptive controls: (1) parameter estimation, (2) state-variable estimation, and (3) computation of optimal controls. The chapter highlights the methods presently available in the area of optimal control computations. These methods are for the linear process case with quadratic performance criterion.