Variable structure control and active vibration suppression of flexible spacecraft during attitude maneuver

This paper presents a new approach to vibration reduction of flexible spacecraft during attitude maneuver by using the theory of variable structure control (VSC) to design switching logic for thruster firing and lead zirconate titanate (PZT) as sensor and actuator for active vibration suppression. The spacecraft to be investigated is a hub with a cantilever flexible beam appendage, which can undergo a single axis rotation. The proposed control system includes the attitude controller acting on the rigid hub, designed by variable structure control technique, and the surface-bonded PZT patches for active vibration suppression of flexible appendages, designed by the positive position feedback (PPF) control technique. To avoid chattering, pulse-width pulse-frequency (PWPF) modulation is adopted for the thruster control, which makes the thrusters to be operated in a close to linear manner and also can suppress the relatively large amplitude vibrations excited by, for example, rapid maneuver. However, some residual micro-vibrations still exist due to the switching actions. Upon that, the technique of active vibration control using PZT is turned on to provide further vibration suppression of the residual micro-vibrations and fine tuning of the system performance. By combining the advantages of both these control strategies, an improved performance for vibration control in both the macro-and micro-senses can result. Both analytical and numerical results are presented to show the theoretical and practical merit of this approach.