Dynamics and vibration suppression of space structures with control moment gyroscopes

This paper presents a new and effective approach for vibration suppression of large space structures. Collocated pairs of control moment gyroscope (CMG) and angular rate sensor are adopted as actuators/sensors. The equations of motion of a flexible structure with a set of arbitrarily distributed CMGs are developed. The detailed dynamics of the CMGs and their interactions between the flexibilities of the structure are incorporated in the formulation. Then, the equations of motion are linearized to describe the small-scale movement of the system. The optimal placement problem of the actuators/sensors on the flexible structures is solved from the perspective of the system controllability and observability. The controller for the vibration suppression is synthesized using only the angular rates of the locations where the CMGs are mounted. The stability of the controller is proved by Lyapunov theorem. Numerical examples of a beam structure and a plate structure validate the efficacy of the proposed method.