INTEGRATED CONTROLS - STRUCTURES DESIGN METHODOLOGY FOR FLEXIBLE SPACECRAFT

This paper proposes an approach for the design of flexible spacecraft, wherein the structural design and the control system design are perfo rmed simultaneously. The integrated design problem is posed as an opti mization problem in which both the structural parameters and the contr ol system parameters constitute the design variables, which are used t o optimize a common objective function, thereby resulting in an optima l overall design. The approach is demonstrated by application to the i ntegrated design of a geostationary platform, and to a ground-based fl exible structure experiment. The numerical results obtained indicate t hat the integrated design approach generally yields spacecraft designs that are substantially superior to the conventional approach, wherein the structural design and control design are performed sequentially.