| Abstract: | A balloon-born stabilized platform has been developed for the remotely operated altitude-azimuth pointing of a millimetre wave telescope system. This paper presents a development and implementation of model reference adaptive control (MRAC) for the azimuth-pointing system of the stabilized platform. The primary goal of the controller is to achieve pointing RMS better than 0.1°. Simulation results indicate that MRAC can achieve pointing RMS better than 0.01°. Ground test results show pointing RMS better than 0.03°. Data from the first flight at the National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF), Palestine, TX show pointing RMS better than 0.02°. |
