Section: Overall Objectives

Highlights of the Year

In collaboration with L. Giraldi and M. Zopello, we started in 2013 to study the optimal swimming strategies for micro-swimmers. Our approach allows us to solve the optimal control problem without making restrictive assumptions on the shape of the swimming movements. The first numerical results on the 3-link swimmer indicate the existence of a periodic stroke with a better displacement speed than the canonical stroke presented by Purcell in 1977. Further directions include optimal design of micro-swimmers and comparing our simulations to the movement of live micro-organisms.

In collaboration with CNES, a trajectory optimization problem for Ariane 5 was studied and analyzed by HJB approach. In this study, the flight model is considered in dimension 6 without simplification. The problem consists in maximizing the payload to steer the launcher from the launch base (Kourou) to the GEO orbit. The mission includes ballistic phases and the optimization also encompasses the intermediate GTO orbit parameters. The optimization criterion is the mass of the payload to be injected on the GEO.

Finally, the team completed 3 PhD and 4 patents in 2013.