Pointing Control Testbed for Segmented Reflectors

This paper presents the research conducted at the Structures, Pointing and Control Engineering (SPACE) laboratory in achieving precision pointing of segmented reflector testbed. The system´s top-level requirements include figure maintenance of the primary mirror to hold within 1 micron RMS distortion and precision pointing with accuracy of 2 are seconds. The paper focuses on the integrated analysis of the different control challenges that such advanced system would face. The objective of this research is broader in the sense that the methods and tools developed in this study shall be useful for and applicable to a broad variety of pointing control applications