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Abstract

An arrangement for the attitude stabilization of flexible vehicles, such asircraft 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 the modulator to the observer and a low pass filter is included between the state controller device and the modulator network. The filter has either at least two low pass filter sections of first order or a single low pass filter section of at least second order. The break-point frequencies of the filter section or sections lies between the natural frequency of the rigid body and the lower structural resident frequency of the respective vehicle axis. Equivalent circuits are disclosed for replacing the observer and state controller device as described above. Adaptive techniques as well as digital realizations of the various embodiments are also disclosed.

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First Claim