Real-Time Optimal Guidance for a Vertical Takeoff and Landing System Tender, Netherlands - 98886759

Procurement Summary

Country : Netherlands

Summary : Real-Time Optimal Guidance for a Vertical Takeoff and Landing System

Deadline : 26 Apr 2024

Other Information

Notice Type : Tender

TOT Ref.No.: 98886759

Document Ref. No. : 1-12187

Competition : ICB

Financier : Other Funding Agencies

Purchaser Ownership : Public

Tender Value : Refer Document

Purchaser's Detail

Purchaser : EUROPEAN SPACE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY CENTRE (ESTEC)
Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, Netherlands Tel : +31-715656565
Netherlands

Tender Details

Tenders are invited for Real-Time Optimal Guidance for a Vertical Takeoff and Landing System

Objectives: The objective of this activity is to design optimisation-based algorithms forreal-time guidance and to assess their applicability/performance in the faceof uncertainties, failures, mission re-planning and divert manoeuvres.Various optimisation schemes shall be developed, compared, and flight testedon a suitable demonstrator vehicle such as ADAMP.Description: The increase in the level of autonomy and responsiveness of futuremissions may rely on trajectory design and GNC strategies based on realtimeoptimisation-based methods. This approach allows to consideruncertainties and failures in the mission execution, in such a way thatperformance and robustness is ensured via the onboard computationalcapability to solve complex optimisation problems. This is in contrast withtraditional offline/on-ground techniques which are limited by the fact that, ifthe vehicle deviates too much from its design envelope, the safety andperformance of the mission may not be ensured.The current trend for future missions includes stringent requirements onmission responsiveness, in the sense that the vehicle shall feature realtimeadaptability with respect to fast turn-around times, failures, abortscenarios, modification of target orbits, flexibility in orbital attitude pointing, and any other aspect where re-planning is needed. This will lead toparadigm shift with respect to the traditional trajectory and guidance designschemes.The applicability of real-time GNC algorithms based on onboardoptimisation has been demonstrated within and outside of ESA, not onlyfor the ascent and descent flight of planetary landers, but also for preciseorbital operations such as slew manoeuvres under tight pointingconstraints. Nonetheless, significant efforts still need to be placed indeveloping methods for designing and validating guidance systems able toperform autonomous mission execution including re-planning. Theseefforts shall contribute to reduce the development risks and to increase theunderstanding of the necessary architecture and functional complexity offully autonomous GNC systems.The objective of this activity is to take advantage of the upcomingavailability of bi-propellant engine-based testbeds such as ADAMP toinvestigate and demonstrate the capabilities of real-time optimisationbasedguidance in terms of:Mission planning andexecution.Mission adaptation and re-planning.Safe mission execution in degraded off-nominal cases.Onboard computer and software performance.In-flight implementation, testing and demonstration.Such capabilities have general applicability on a number of applicationsand are also augmenting the capabilities of free-flying platforms such asADAMP to safely and efficiently serve the needs of their commercialcustomers.In order to achieve this, the following tasks are envisaged:Requirement adaptation for real-time guidance mission scenario.Review and trade-off analysis of optimisation-based algorithms.Development/adaptation of flight simulation and softwareverification infrastructure.Test plan definition for functional, software, hardware-in-the-loopand in-flight verification.Detailed guidance algorithms design.Detailed software design, integration and (auto)coding.Execution of functional, software, hardware-in-the-loop and inflighttests.Read more

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