Active nonlinear vibration control of a membrane solar array structure

Membrane solar array has attracted a lot of attentions in recent years because of the advantage of light-weight, low-cost, and high-folding-ratio. Meanwhile, the membrane solar array structure also pose challenging large-amplitude vibration issue which will impact the performance of the spacecraft significantly. In this paper, active nonlinear vibration control of a membrane solar array structure is studied. Based on the nonlinear finite element method, a nonlinear dynamic model of the structure is established. The optimal positions of piezoelectric actuators are determined by optimizing a controllability optimization criterion with Particle Swarm Optimizer algorithm. An active controller is designed to suppress the undesired nonlinear vibration based on the linearized dynamic model by using the LQR control method. Simulation results show that the designed active controller can suppress the nonlinear vibration of the membrane solar array structure effectively, and the optimally placed actuators can produce better control effect with smaller control inputs.