Controllability Analysis of A Two Degree of Freedom Nonlinear Attitude Control System.pdfVIP

Controllability Analysis of A Two Degree of Freedom Nonlinear Attitude Control System Jinglai Shen, Amit K. Sanyal, and N. Harris McClamroch Department of Aerospace Engineering The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2140 USA Abstract We study a physically simple two degree of freedom attitude control system that has a single control input. The physical assumptions are described. Equations of motion are derived and expressed in a nonlinear control form. We demonstrate that the system is inherently nonlinear. Conditions for small time local controllability of the state and of the configuration are presented. 1 Introduction An air spindle is supported by an air bearing so that it can rotate without friction about its vertical axis. The air spindle supports a rigidly attached platform that rotates in a horizontal plane. A control torque is exerted on the spindle by a motor. An unactuated mass particle is constrained to move without friction along a straight track that is rigidly mounted on the horizontal platform. This air spindle system is similar to a physical testbed that exists in the Attitude Dynamics and Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan. The air spindle in the laboratory testbed is not actuated, but several masses that move in straight tracks rigidly mounted on the platform are actuated. This experimental testbed has been described in [1] and nonlinear control results have been developed and experimentally validated in [5]. The air spindle system studied in this paper has different actuation assumptions and leads to different, but equally interesting, nonlinear control problems. 2 Equations of Motion In