Intelligent shape control for precision membrane antennae and reflectors in space

• Published in: Smart materials and structures 1999-12, Vol.8 (6), p.857-867
• Main Authors: Jenkins, C H, Kalanovic, V D, Padmanabhan, K, Faisal, S M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0964-1726; 1361-665X
• DOI: 10.1088/0964-1726/8/6/313

This paper addresses the problem of modeling and controlling a class of nonlinear systems that can be considered as highly compliant structures. We consider specifically planar and inflatable membranes, which are represented by complex nonlinear multi-variable models. Boundary perturbations and thermal gradients are demonstrated to be potential actuation schemes for improving the reflector profile. Nonlinear controllers developed to improve performance are often dependent on state estimation and parameter identification procedures. The existence of these procedures, within the control strategy, increases the size of the algorithms, limiting the system performance in real-time. This research has as a main objective to create an intelligent controller based on feedback error learning, which is capable of extracting performance information from precision large membrane deployables and subsequently using this information to achieve maximum surface precision. (Author)