Controller design for vibration suppression of slewing flexible structures

Abstract Near optimal design of an open-loop control law for vibration suppression of slewing flexible structures is presented. The control law is derived in modal space. The optimal slewing time is evaluated from the control of the rigid mode of the structure, and for flexible modes, a quadratic control law with free parameters is suggested. Two performance indices which involves system energy and control effort, and control input constraints are derived based on this control law. The vibration suppression of the slewing structures is achieved through the minimization of the performance index subjected to the input constraints. Sequential nonlinear programming is employed in seeking the optimal parameters of the control law. Optimal control of a slewing flexible beam is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the present proposal.