An active damping technique for satellites with flexible appendages

Abstract

A control scheme to provide active damping in the structural modes of the spacecraft with flexible appendages has been proposed. The scheme uses the rigid body rate observer and gyro measurements to extract the net rates due to the generalized motion of the flexible modes only. It is shown that the feedback of these rates leads to active damping. The scheme offers a highly robust control as there is no need to model the flexible appendages explicitly. Simulations are carried out to establish vast improvement in performance in the presence of severe control structural dynamics interaction.