Rocket Landing Control with Grid Fins and Path-following using MPC

Abstract

In this project, we attempt to optimize a landing trajectory of a rocket. The goal is to minimize the total fuel consumption during the landing process using different techniques. Once the optimal and feasible trajectory is generated using batch approach, we attempt to follow the path using a Model Predictive Control (MPC) based algorithm, called Trajectory Optimizing Path following Estimation from Demonstration (TOPED), in order to generalize to similar initial states and models, where we introduce a novel cost function for the MPC to solve. We further show that TOPED can follow a demonstration trajectory well in practice under model mismatch and different initial states.