Robust dissipative compensators for flexible spacecraft control

The problem of controller design for flexible spacecraft is addressed. Model-based compensators, which rely on the knowledge of the system parameters to tune the state estimator, are first considered, and are shown to have high sensitivity to parameter uncertainties. Three types of dissipative controllers, which use collocated actuators and sensors, are next considered. These controllers guarantee stability in the presence of unmodeled elastic modes and parameter uncertainties. A procedure is given for designing an optimal dissipative dynamic compensator, which can provide better performance while still retaining robust stability