CONTROL OF FLEXIBLE SPACECRAFT USING NONLINEAR APPROXIMATION OF INPUTSHAPE DEPENDENCE ON REORIENTATION MANEUVER PARAMETERS

This paper presents a design of a novel advanced feedforward controlle r for a large-angle reorientation maneuver of a spacecraft with flexib le appendages, such as a telecommunication satellite. The controller i s capable of fast computation of an optimal feedforward input shape fo r a nonlinear flexible system. This is achieved through radial basis f unction (RBF) network approximation of the feedforward dependence on t he maneuver parameters. The paper describes a flexible spacecraft test bed and studies the application of the controller to the testbed contr ol. It presents a few insights into the design, and performance analys is of the RBF network approximation. The designed controller is demons trated to combine excellent performance in the compensation of residua l flexible vibrations for the nonlinear system under consideration, as well as computational simplicity. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.