Abstract
A tension controller for the tether system using the 50 kg-class microsatellite, which has been studied mainly by National Aerospace Laboratory in Japan, is designed. First, the optimal reference motion of the system is designed by using a simple model that ignores the tether flexibility. Then, the controller to make the system track the reference motion is designed by also using the simple model. The effect of the tether flexibility is not considered in the design of the controller, but is dealt with as disturbance in this simple model. In order to make a reference motion that is easy to follow, a certain measure of the difficulty of tracking is selected as the objective functional, which is to be minimized. Finally, the tracking controller is applied to the model in which the tether flexibility is considered to test how the designed controller can deal with flexibility. The validity of the controller is verified through numerical simulations.
