Arrangement for the attitude stabilization of flexible vehicles with weakly-dampened structural vibrations and discontinuous control intervention

US4567564A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Messerschmitt Bolkow Blohm GmbH · DE

Inventors

• Helmut Bittner · Munich, DE
• Eveline Gottzein · Oberpframmern, DE
• Michael Surauer · Chieming, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 19, 1981
• Grant date: Jan 28, 1986
• Expiry date: Jun 19, 2001

Classification

• Technology area (CPC B): Performing Operations; Transporting
• CPC primary: B64G1/244
• WIPO field: Transport
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

An arrangement for the attitude stabilization of flexible vehicles, such as ircraft and spacecraft. Such vehicles, due to their lightweight construction and/or large spatial extension or high degree of slenderness, have structurally weakly-dampened bending vibrations and/or torsional vibrations. For generating the forces and moments required for stabilizing such vehicle, discontinuously operating units are used. In one embodiment, for each vehicle axis, an observer or Kalman filter is employed for obtaining estimated values of the state variables of the vehicle system to be controlled. The observer has a first transfer function of at most third order. A state controller device is responsive to the observer for controlling the state variables. A modulator network is responsive to the state controller device wherein the modulator network has a relay characteristic. In this embodiment, a feedback path is arranged from the output of the modulator network to the observer which eliminates the need for a special modulator network having a second transfer function and also eliminates internal modulator feedback. In another form of the invention, the feedback is arranged from the input of t…