A Decentralized Approach to Vibration Suppression in Segmented Reflector Telescopes

In the present paper the problem of vibration suppression in segmented reflector telescopes is considered. The decomposition of the structure into smaller components is discussed and control laws for vibration suppression as well as conditions for stability at the local level are derived. These conditions, and the properties of the interconnecting patterns are then utilized to obtain sufficient conditions for global stability.