Analytical and experimental results are presented of a Lyapunov approach to designing globally stabilizing controllers for large nonlinear motions of distributed parameter systems. The configuration studied is a nine-body hub-appendage system consisting of five rigid bodies interconnected by four flexible beams. The control is designed such that a compromise is achieved between vibration suppression and maneuver time. The method allows the form of rigorously stabilizing control laws for a nonlinear distributed parameter system to be established before discretization and order-reduction approximations are introduced.
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