Abstract
This paper describes modeling of torsional vibrations of flexible large space structures, such as solar battery arrays, and a control method based on this model. The torsional vibrations are modelled by taking into account the flexibility of the solar array and the inertial moments of the supporting rigid body based on the unconstrained mode method. Employing this model of the flexible structure, the system and the observation equations of the dynamics can be derived in the form of the state representation after N mode decomposition. The torsional vibrations can be measured by using a newly developed differential type of sensor, which consists of a pair of adjacent solar cells. A vibration control method is shown by the state feedback based on the dynamics. Some of experimental results employing the proposed control method are also shown.
