Computationally Efficient Control Allocation

The details of a computationally efficient method for calculating near-optimal solutions to the three-objective, linear, control-allocation problem are described. The control-allocation problem is that of distributing the effort of redundant control effectors to achieve some desired set of objectives. The optimal solutions is that which exploits the collective maximum capability of the effectors within their individual physical limits. Computational efficiency is measured by the number of floating-point operations required for solution. The method presented returned optimal solutions in more than 90% of the case examined; nonoptimal solutions returned by the method were typically much less than 1% different from optimal. The computational requirements of the method presented varied linearly with increasing numbers of controls and were much lower than those of previously described facet-searching methods, which increase in proportion to the square of the number of controls.