Desensitized Optimal Control

What is it about?

Desensitized optimal control is an extension of the standard optimal control formulation that allows the user to incorporate sensitivities into the problems formulation. For example, with standard optimal control, one may find the trajectory that steers a spacecraft to a desired location with minimum fuel. In practice, when the so-designed reference solution is flown, perturbations can occur that take the spacecraft slightly off course, The required course corrections may cause the actual fuel consumption to increase significantly. Desensitized Optimal Control (DOC) alleviates this problem by enabling the design of solutions that are less "sensitive". In practice this means that DOC gives up a little bit of optimality in the nominal case in favor of reshaping the trajectory such that course corrections, should they be required, become less expensive.

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