Space Vehicle Dynamics and Control (Aiaa Education Series)

Rating:
Summary: A great addition to the literature
Review: Bong Wie's "Space Vehicle Dynamics and Control" is, by far, one of the best books ever published in the AIAA Education Series. It packs a lot of info on a multitude of subjects which don't usually come together in a single book. The mathematical preliminaries and the sections on dynamics and control of flexible structures are particularly well done. (This is perhaps the first time a textbook covers the interlacing property of poles & zeros of certain transfer functions, particularly those associated with flexible structures.) In addition, the inclusion of the "H-infinity" topic the way the author did it is very good since, in general, books do not feature the subject in such a concise, objective, useful way. The same is true of the section on halo orbits, as well. Best of all, Wie's having included Kharitonov's theorem comes as a blessing, since the issue is rarely seen in non-European texts.

Unfortunately, in its present form (first edition), the book is not without its flaws. The alphabetical index should indicate explicitly where one can find subjects like the aforementioned interlacing property, as well as bang-bang-type controls. Also, a couple of topics have been omitted altogether: yo-yo devices (possibly deemed too simple) and the more advanced issues pertaining to the extremely important time-varying nonlinear systems (e.g.: time-varying eigenvalues). This is arguably OK, as this last subject, requiring a lot of preliminary material on operator theory, might be considered too advanced for a non-systems book, especially one in the Education Series.

In closing, one must acknowledge Bong Wie for bringing this more-than-welcome addition to the controls literature.