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CEAS EuroGNC 2026

Modeling and attitude control of a flexible spacecraft with a rotating antenna
Daniel Alazard Professor, Fédération ENAC ISAE-SUPAERO ONERA, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France.
Francesco Sanfedino Associate Professor, Fédération ENAC ISAE-SUPAERO ONERA, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France.
Andre Marrazza Research engineer, DYCSYT, Toulouse, France.
Ervan Kassarian Robust control expert, DYCSYT, Toulouse, France.
Abstract:
The three-axis model of spacecraft fitted with flexible solar panels and a rotating RF (Radio-Frequency) antenna is derived. This model is fully parametrized according to the uncertain dynamic parameters (mass, centering, inertia, flexible mode frequencies) and varying parameters (solar array angular configuration, RF antenna rotating rate). A robust three-axis attitude controller is then designed to reject orbital disturbances. A pointing error budget is then performed to assess the effects of the disturbances coming from the Solar Array Driving Mechanism (SADM) and the time-periodic disturbance coming from the rotating RF antenna.
Keywords: Flexible structures; robust control; spacecraft; gyroscopic mode; Linear Time Periodic; Linear Parameter Varying
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2026-093 doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-093


Daniel Alazard, Francesco Sanfedino, Andre Marrazza, Ervan Kassarian: Modeling and attitude control of a flexible spacecraft with a rotating antenna. Proceedings of the 2026 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Madrid, Spain. May 2026. doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-093.
BibTeX entry (UTF-8):

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2026-093,
    author = {Alazard, Daniel and Sanfedino, Francesco and Marrazza, Andre and Kassarian, Ervan},
    title = {Modeling and attitude control of a flexible spacecraft with a rotating antenna},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Madrid, Spain},
    month = may,
    year = {2026},
    doi = {10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-093}
}