Vibration Suppression for Large-Scale Flexible Structures Using Deep Reinforcement Learning Based on Cable-Driven Parallel Robots

Specific satellites with ultra-long wings play a crucial role in many fields. However, external disturbance and self-rotation could result in undesired vibrations of flexible wings, which affects the normal operation of the satellites. In severe cases, the satellites will be damaged. Therefore, it is imperative to conduct vibration suppression for these flexible structures. Utilizing deep reinforcement learning (DRL), an active control scheme is presented in this paper to rapidly suppress the vibration of flexible structures with quite small controllable force based on a cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR). To verify the controller’s effectiveness, three groups of simulation with different initial disturbance are implemented. Besides, to enhance the contrast, a passive pre-tightening scheme is also tested. First, the dynamic model of the CDPR that is comprised of four cables and a flexible structure is established using the finite element method. Then, the dynamic behavior of the model under the controllable cable force is analyzed by Newmark-ß method. Furthermore, the agent of DRL is trained by the deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm (DDPG). Finally, the control scheme is conducted on Simulink environment to evaluate its performance, and the results are satisfactory, which validates the controller’s ability to suppress vibrations.