• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.7
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• pp.620-628
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• 2016

The homotopy algorithm provides a robust method for determining optimal control, in some cases the global minimum solution, as a continuation parameter is varied gradually to regulate the contributions of the nonlinear terms. In this paper, the Successive Backward Sweep (SBS) method, which is insensitive to initial guess, augmented with a homotopy algorithm is suggested. This approach is effective for highly nonlinear problems such as low-thrust trajectory optimization. Often, these highly nonlinear problems have multiple local minima. In this case, the SBS-homotopy method enables one to steadily seek a global minimum.