Slewing flexible spacecraft with deflection-limiting input shaping

A control scheme is described for slewing flexible spacecraft with both suppression of deflection during the slew and elimination of residual oscillations. The method minimizes the maneuver time subject to constraints on residual vibration magnitude, sensitivity to modeling errors, rest-to-rest slew distance, and the transient deflection amplitude. Furthermore, a solution is sought that provides inherent fuel efficiency. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated with linear and nonlinear computer simulations.