Dynamic modeling and control of a solar sail considering large-amplitude nonlinear vibration

Abstract

The solar sail spacecraft utilizes Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP) to achieve propulsion, which can realize long-term acceleration without fuel consumption, making it an appealing option for deep space exploration and polar-sitter observation. However, because of the large-scale and high-flexibility of the membrane structure, the solar sail poses challenging dynamic and control issues. Precise dynamic modeling and effective control design can provide theoretical guidance for the efficient functioning of solar sail, which are of great significance and urgently need to be studied. In this paper, a dynamic model that can describe the large-amplitude vibrations of the solar sail is established. Additionally, an attitude tracking controller and a cable-based nonlinear vibration controller are designed to control the attitude motion and flexible vibration of the solar sail. The results show that the established nonlinear rigid-flexible coupling dynamic model is more accurate compared to the linear dynamic model. The polynomial fitting method can characterize the nonlinear dynamics of the solar sail extremely effectively while cutting the program runtime to 5% of the original. Two controllers designed in this paper can make the solar sail maneuver follow the desired trajectory accurately while reducing the sail surface vibration by more than 40%. The research outcomes of this paper can provide references for the dynamic study and active control of large-scale membrane spacecraft.