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 effecters to achieve some desired set of objectives. The optimal solution is that which exploits the collective maximum capability of the effecters within their individual ph! sic al 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 cases 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 milch lon er than those of previously described facet-searching, methods, which increase in proportion to the square of the number of controls.