Predictive control for the attitude maneuver of a flexible spacecraft

Predictive control for the attitude maneuver of a flexible spacecraft model is proposed. The predictive control law takes the flexibility into account which is caused by the rotational maneuver of spacecraft body. In fact, the new control law is an extension of a previous predictive control law applied to a pure rigid model. The flexible spacecraft model consists of a rigid center body with two identical flexible structures attached. The resultant control law is an output feedback with robustness in the sense that state estimation is not needed for actual implementation of the control law. The control law therefore may be claimed to maintain the inherent properties of nonlinear predictive controllers as well as robust output feedback for the flexible spacecraft model.