Recent advancements in deployable structures are enabling mission concepts for large deployable apertures, i.e. antennas and solar panels. However, large deployable structures can have high flexibility, with modal frequencies approaching the bandwidth requirements for even low-precision attitude control. The fact that the flexible modes of deployable structures can be difficult to model prior to launch makes the controller-design problem even more difficult. The goal of this project is to develop control methodologies that exploit the large trade space in sensors, actuators, and control objective. Sensors can be limited to traditional attitude and angular-velocity sensors, or also include measurements of the flexible-body motion (i.e. strains or displacements). Actuators can be limited to applying a single torque to the spacecraft, or allow multiple actuators distributed across the deployable structure. Control objectives can be simply to avoid exciting the flexible-body motion, or to actively control these perturbations. Research projects may address one or more of these topics.

Organization: Scholars