Modeling and adaptive control for a spatial flexible spacecraft with unknown actuator failures

In this paper, we address simultaneous control of a flexible spacecraft’s attitude and vibrations in a three-dimensional space under input disturbances and unknown actuator failures. Using Hamilton’s principle, the system dynamics is modeled as an infinite dimensional system captured using partial differential equations. Moreover, a novel adaptive fault tolerant control strategy is developed to suppress the vibrations of the flexible panel in the course of the attitude stabilization. To determine whether the system energies,angular velocities and transverse deflections, remain bounded and asymptotically decay to zero in the case wherein the number of actuator failures is infinite, a Lyapunov-based stability analysis is conducted. Finally,extensive numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed adaptive control strategy.