Dynamic modeling and wind vibration control of the feed support system in FAST

The Feed Support System (FSS) addressed here is the receiver carrier of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China. The FSS is a complex hybrid manipulator, which consists of a cable-driven Stewart manipulator, an A–B rotator and a rigid Stewart manipulator. The cable-driven Stewart manipulator, which is a long-span flexible cable structure, is sensitive to the wind disturbance and induces the FSS vibration. The rigid Stewart manipulator is designed to suppress the vibration and improve the terminal accuracy of the FSS. In the paper, the elastic dynamic model of the cable-driven Stewart manipulator is deduced by simplifying the flexible cable as the spring damping model, while the rigid-body dynamic model of the A–B rotator and the rigid Stewart manipulator is obtained in detail, using the Newton–Euler method. The internal coupling forces of the FSS are figured out. The wind disturbance model is established according to the Davenport spectrum. By adopting the kinematic and dynamic parameters of the FAST prototype, the simulation model of the FSS is completed. Kinematic and dynamic vibration control strategies are evaluated with simulations. Results show that the dynamic vibration suppression strategy well satisfies the FSS terminal accuracy requirement, keeps the rigid Stewart manipulator working with reasonable driving forces, and should be adopted in the control system of the FAST prototype.