Identification experiment for control of flexible structures

Abstract

This paper describes a laboratory experiment, referred to as the Beam Control Experiment (BCE), which has the essential features of a large flexible structure. The experiment is used to develop and evaluate identification and control algorithms that look promising in the active control of large space structures with high performance pointing and stability requirements. Some results on the maximum likelihood identification of the parameters of the beam-actuator-sensor assembly from experimental data are presented in the paper.