On steady motions of a rigid body bearing a two-degree-of-freedom control momentum gyroscope with precession axis arbitrarily oriented in the carrying body

摘要

Steady motions of a rigid body with a control momentum gyroscope are studied versus the gimbal axis direction relative to the body and the magnitude of the system angular momentum. The study is based on a formula that gives a parametric representation of the set of the system steady motions in terms of the rotation angle of the gimbal. It is shown that, depending on the values of the parameters, the system has 8, 12, or 16 steady motions and the number of stable motions is 2 or 4.