Variable structure maneuvering control of a flexible Spacecraft

In this paper, variable structure control (VSC) is investigated for rotational maneuvers of a flexible spacecraft, i.e. a rigid central body with an elastic appendage attached. It is shown that the closed-loop system is exponentially stable. Different from the conventional VSC designs for truncated systems, the controller synthesized here is applied to partial differential equations (PDE) of the system. Thus, the exponential stability holds for the original distributed-parameter system. Simulation studies show that the rotational maneuvers can be performed precisely and the vibration is suppressed as well