Aircraft trajectory optimization with direct collocation using movable gridpoints

One of the shortcomings of the direct collocation method, as presented in the recent literature, will be addressed in this paper. The major problem area concerns the node placement, i.e. the discretization. A practical approach to improve the quality of the optimal solution with only a slight increase in computing time is to introduce movable nodes that are optimally placed by the algorithm. The principle capabilities of this method will be demonstrated on some general aircraft trajectory optimization problems. In addition, solutions to some undesirable side effects that occur with a pointwise evaluation of path constraints will be presented.