Energy-based robust controller design for flexible spacecraft

This paper presents a class of non-model-based position controllers for a kind of flexible spacecraft. With the controllers, one can achieve not only the closed-loop stability of the original distributed parameter system, but also the asymptotic stability of the truncated system, which is obtained through representing the deflection of the appendage by an arbitrary finite number of flexible modes. The system dynamics are not explicitly involved in the controller design and stability proof. Instead, only a very basic system energy relationship of the flexible spacecraft is utilized. The controllers possess several remarkable advantages over the traditional model-based ones. Numerical simulations are carried out on a kind of spacecraft with one flexible appendage and satisfactory results are obtained.