Suboptimal Path Planning and Control for AERCamjSprint : Final Report

This paper describes a technique for planning collision-free, fuel-efficient paths and thruster controls for moving Sprint from an initial to a goal location and attitude among multiple obstacles. The planning problem is formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem whose parameters are the locations of control points of splines representing Sprint's path and the time interval between the control points. Using Matlab as a test bed, many paths were found for an environment designed to approximate a space shuttle. Any recommendations and conclusions expressed herein, are not necessarily those of the funding agencies. The authors would like to thank John Junkins and Hanspeter Schaub for helpful discussions on topics related to this work.