CONTROL OF MOBILE LINKED FLEXIBLE SYSTEM

Large space structures (LSS) will be constructed by linking flexible structures and so will easily undergo bending vibrations while being moved by rocket engines. In this paper, mobile control and vibration control methods are newly proposed for such a mobile linked flexible system which is composed of joints, flexible links and floating pads, by allocating 4 compressed-air jet nozzles on each floating pad, and a DC motor at the joint of the linkage between the adjacent flexible link. With control of these actuators, the flexible system should go along the supplied trajectory and the bending vibrations should be decreased. In order to derive the dynamics of such a linked system, the system is modelled by a lumped parameter system. Then the proposed control method is applied to a flexible system for the experiment which is totally floated by air bearings at the joints, so that there is no reaction force from the ground to the floating flexible system. Some experimental results are shown to demonstrate the effect of the proposed mobile control and vibration control methods.