Actuator placement from degree of controllability criteria for regular slewing of flexible spacecraft

An important unresolved problem in the attitude and shape control of future large flexible spacecraft is the determination of appropriate locations throughout the flexible vehicle for placement of control system actuators. In a separate work a definition of the degree of controllability was generated for this purpose when the control objective was to return the spacecraft to the desired equilibrium configuration after any disturbance. In some potential space missions the objective will require angular slewing maneuvers of a flexible structure. The optimum actuator locations should be significantly different for this objective. In this paper, concepts of the degree of controllability of a control system for performing standard maneuvers are developed from basic physical considerations, and then numerical methods for generating the degree of controllability are developed. These results offer the control system designer a method of evaluating the effectiveness of candidate actuator distributions. The method is shown to take on a relatively simple form when spacecraft modal coordinates are used.