| Abstract: | A generalized scheme based on the sliding mode and component synthesis vibration suppression (CSVS) method has been proposed for the rotational maneuver and vibration suppression of an orbiting spacecraft with flexible appendages. The proposed control design process is twofold: design of the attitude controller followed by the design of a flexible vibration attenuator. The attitude controller using only the attitude and the rate information for the flexible spacecraft (FS) is designed to serve two purposes: it forces the attitude motion onto a pre-selected sliding surface and then guides it to the state space origin. The shaped command input controller based on the CSVS method is designed for the reduction of the flexible mode vibration, which only requires information about the natural frequency and damping of the closed system. This information is used to discretize the input so that minimum energy is injected via the controller to the flexible modes of the spacecraft. Additionally, to extend the CSVS method to the system with the on-off actuators, the pulse-width pulse-frequency (PWPF) modulation is introduced to control the thruster firing and integrated with the CSVS method. PWPF modulation is a control method that provides pseudo-linear operation for an on-off thruster. The proposed control strategy has been implemented on a FS, which is a hub with symmetric cantilever flexible beam appendages and can undergo a single axis rotation. The results have been proven the potential of this technique to control FS. |
