Robust Control of a Slewing Beam System

In this paper, a robust control system design for a slewing shaft-beam system is presented.The motivation for such a design is the control of flexible structures that need accurate pointing capabilities while rejecting structural vibrations.A finite-element-based model that can contain errors in the damping and nat- ural frequencies is used in the design of the controller.The control inputs can be generated by a torque motor attached to the shaft and a piezoceramic actuator applied over a segment of the beam.It is shown that H 00 design techniques, particularly il-synthesis, can be effectively utilized to cope with structural uncertainties in the parameters of the model.