Feed-forward/feedback control for active vibration suppression of flexible spacecraft during attitude maneuver

This paper presents an investigation into development of feed-forward and feedback control strategies for active vibration suppression and attitude control of flexible spacecrafts. The feed-forward loop consists of a computed-torque scheme and a command shaping technique based on component synthesis vibration suppression (CSVS) method which was developed based on linear systems theory. For relaxing the requirements of dynamic linearity in traditional input component command in CSVS method, a new approach is developed for designing the input component command by utilizing a structure in which the modal forces of flexible modes vibration are shaped according to a predefined trajectory, which improves the performance of CSVS method in vibration suppression for the nonlinear attitude dynamics. This proposed control strategy is practical as it does not require direct measurement of flexible appendage vibration, and also has a simple structure with low on-line computational load. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the control strategy.