Self-excited oscillation of spinning solar sails utilizing solar radiation pressure

The present paper proposes a control method to excite spinning solar sail membranes for three-dimensional use. Using optical property switching, the input is given as the change in magnitude of the solar radiation pressure. The resonance point of this system varies with the vibration state due to its nonlinearity and the change in equilibrium state. To deal with this, a state feedback control law that automatically tracks the resonance point is developed in the present study. The proposed method enables decentralized control of the actuators on the sail, each of which determines the control input independently using only the information of vibration state. The proposed method is validated using numerical simulations. The results show that the nonlinear system behaves differently from the linear system, and the vibration grows using the decentralized control regardless of resonance point variation.