Design of a digital controller for a tracking telescope

This paper discusses the application of certain aspects of modern control theory to the design of a large tracking telescope that is digitally controlled. Two of the most important criteria are tracking accuracy and response time. The system is also constrained by saturation effects on the control variable. State-transition techniques which have finite settling times over a broad class of inputs are used in conjunction with a suitable inequality condition to obtain a control with near minimum time response. Digital simulation has shown that the design obtained has high accuracy and does not exceed the saturation limitation on the control variable.