27th Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 19 - 24 September 2010, Nice, France
Paper ICAS 2010-5.6.3

OPTIMAL CONTROL OF CRUISE FLIGHT AT CONSTANT ALTITUDE

A. Franco, A. Valenzuela, D. Rivas
Univ. de Sevilla, Spain

Keywords: optimal control, cruise flight, flight mechanics

Cruise optimization is formulated as an optimal control problem. Since the Hamiltonian of the problem is linear on the control variable (thrust), one has a singular optimal control problem. The cases of maximum range, minimum fuel, minimum fuel with fixed arrival time and minimum direct operating cost are analyzed.

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