Linear Pseudospectral Method with Chebyshev Collocation for Optimal Control Problems with Unspecified Terminal Time

In this paper, a linear Chebyshev pseudospectral method (LCPM) is proposed to solve the nonlinear optimal control problems (OCPs) with hard terminal constraints and unspecified final time, which uses Chebyshev collocation scheme and quasi-linearization. First, Taylor expansion around the nonlinear differential equations of the system is used to obtain a set of linear perturbation equations. Second, the first-order necessary conditions for OCPs with these linear equations and unspecified terminal time are derived, which provide the successive correction formulas of control and terminal time. Traditionally, these formulas are linear time varying and cannot be solved in an analytical manner. Third, Lagrange interpolation, whose supporting points are orthogonal Chebyshev–Gauss–Lobatto (CGL), is employed to discretize the resulting problem. Therefore, a series of analytical correction formulas are successfully derived in approximating polynomial space. It should be noted that Chebyshev approximation is close to the best polynomial approximation, and CGL points can be solved in closed form. Finally, LCPM is applied to the air-to-ground missile guidance problem. The simulation results show that it has high computational efficiency and convergence rate. A comparison with the other typical OCP solvers is provided to verify the optimality of the proposed algorithm. In addition, the results of Monte Carlo simulations are presented, which show that the proposed algorithm has strong robustness and stability. Therefore, the proposed method has potential to be onboard application.