Coupling Attitude Control for Flexible Spacecraft with Rotating Structure

This paper is devoted to the precise attitude control of flexible spacecraft with rotating structures, which is modeled as a rigid platform with some attached flexible appendages. During attitude maneuver, the excited vibration of flexible appendages would downgrade the performance of the spacecraft. In order to address this key issue, the idea of a coupling attitude controller, in which the positive position feedback control method is introduced to suppress the elastic vibration based on piezoelectric materials is proposed, while a robust H ∞ controller with the consideration of uncertainties is utilized to control the attitude. Also, the stability of the coupling attitude controller is analyzed. The methodology is implemented on a spacecraft attitude control problem in which the platform undergoes attitude maneuver. The simulation results show the efficiency of the coupling attitude controller. The proposed theory is meaningful for flexible spacecraft to achieve high pointing precision and stability.