Multibody Dynamics and Nonlinear Control of Flexible Space Structures

Abstract

A multibody dynamics formulation for studying the response of large space structures with interconnected flexible bodies is presented. The use of system modes to model the structural flexibility results in a compact form of the nonlinear equations of motion. Next, the nonlinear control based feedback linearization technique is applied to effectively control the attitude motion of a flexible space platform. Using the original nonlinear dynamics of the multibody system, the controller determines the effort to effectively linearize the system and introduces a linear compensator to achieve the desired output in the presence of structural flexibility of the spacecraft.