Integrated Control and Structure design framework for spacecraft applied to Biomass satellite.

This paper presents a research activity on the design of an Integrated Control Structure framework enabling to ensure co-jointly structure sizing and robust control design for flexible satellite. This work has been supported by the European Space Agency in the scope of the robust AOCS technology program initiated to support Biomass phase A mission. An Integrated Modeling, Control and Analysis Framework (IMCA) has been developed and exploited to optimize the articulated arm of Biomass satellite reflector while guaranteeing the existence of a controller fulfilling mission requirements. AOCS and Mechanical engineering tools have been merged into a single and unified multilevel optimization process where a spacecraft structure parameter set is iteratively and automatically updated to minimize the overall structure mass. The control design problem has been formulated and managed in the H∞/μ setting and the optimization process executed using Differential Evolution algorithm.