Differential Evolution based Trajectory Optimization of a Four Stage Launch Vehicle

This paper presents a methodology based on Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm to perform trajectory optimization for generating reference trajectory of a four-stage Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV). For the generation of reference trajectory, suitable objective function has been formulated incorporating parameters and the contribution of these parameters in developing the objective function has been represented by assigning different weighting factors against the different parameters. Moreover, optimal selection of the setting of parameters has also been achieved by proper optimization of the weighting factors. Finally, a comparative study has been presented between the proposed DE based design and the existing GA based design.