Control of flexible spacecraft using dynamic inversion and µ-synthesis

In this paper, the problem of attitude control of a flexible spacecraft is investigated. Three controllers are presented. The first controller is based on dynamic inversion, while the second is based on the µ-synthesis method and the third approach is composed of dynamic inversion and µ-synthesis schemes. It is assumed that only one torque on the hub is used. Actuator saturation is also considered in the design of controllers. To evaluate the performance of the proposed controllers, an extensive number of simulations on the model of the spacecraft are performed. The performances of the proposed controllers are compared in terms of nominal performance, robustness to uncertainties, suppression of panel vibration, sensitivity to measurement noise, environment disturbance, and nonlinearity in large maneuvers. Simulation results confirm the ability of the proposed controller in tracking the attitude trajectory while damping the panel vibration. It is also verified that the perturbations, environment disturbanc...