Adaptive control for the attitude maneuver of flexible spacecraft under disturbance sources

Abstract

Precision attitude control of flexible space structure by adaptive real-time control is addressed in this paper. A ground experimental model is developed for verification of the stabilization strategy using an adaptive control technique. The experimental set up simulates planar motion of flexible space structure as a coupled hybrid dynamics of rigid body pitching motion and flexible vibration. The adaptive notch filter and adaptive controller with the neural network, which updates filter and controller parameters continuously from the sensor measurement, are implemented in the real-time framework for the attitude control. For the control of high frequency structural modes or external disturbances, a high authority control (HAC), by the least mean squares (LMS) algorithm in conjunction with the adaptive notch filter, is applied to the flexible spacecraft model. The principal purpose of this study is, therefore, to apply the adaptive control algorithm to investigate feasibility of practical implementation. By the experimental study, it was shown that the adaptive controller successfully stabilizes the uncertain and it accurately controls the attitude of flexible space structure.