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arXiv · 2609.13990

Diffusion-Based Multiple-Shooting Indirect Optimal Control for Fuel-Optimal Spacecraft Trajectory Generation

Saeid Tafazzol·Ehsan Taheri·Ryne Beeson
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Abstract

Diffusion-based generative models (DMs) have found applications in control problems, and in particular robotics, where the DMs enable exploration of possible control solutions. A critical shortcoming of these applications is that they have lacked optimality guarantees. This is a problem for their potential use in fuel-optimal spacecraft trajectories that are characterized with long time-horizons and bang-bang profiles. Alternatively, indirect optimal control methods ensure explicit satisfaction of necessary conditions, but are highly sensitive to the initial costate estimation needed to solve the resulting Hamiltonian boundary-value problems (HBVPs). To alleviate this sensitivity and enlarge the convergence domain of HBVPs, advanced indirect methods have been developed that use smoothing approaches and continuation. We propose a diffusion-based multiple shooting indirect control method that combines the exploration capability of DMs with indirect method to generate fuel-optimal spacecraft trajectories. We benchmark our method against an advanced indirect method on a fuel-optimal Earth-Mars low-thrust transfer problem, showing higher convergence robustness than the advanced indirect method that is based on random costate initialization. Code and visualizations are available at https://saeidtafazzol.github.io/Diffusion_Indirect_Control/.

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BibTeXRIS

Saeid Tafazzol, Ehsan Taheri, Ryne Beeson. 2026-09-12. Diffusion-Based Multiple-Shooting Indirect Optimal Control for Fuel-Optimal Spacecraft Trajectory Generation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.13990

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