Optimal Control of Deployment of a Tethered Subsatellite

One of the most important operations during a tethered satellite system mission is the deployment of a subsatellite from a space ship. We restrict tothe simple but practically important case that the system ismoving on a circular orbit around the Earth. The main problem duringdeployment due to gravity gradient is that the two satellites do not move along the straight radial relative equilibrium position which is stable for a tether of constant length. Instead, deploymentleads to an unstable motion with respect to the radial relativeequilibrium configuration. Therefore we introduce an optimal control strategy using theMaximum Principle to achieve a force controlled deployment of the tethered subsatellite from the radial relative equilibrium position close to the space ship to the radial relative equilibrium position far away from the space ship.     

Viscoelastic properties of confined molecular layers

We study the viscoelastic properties of a film of n layers of spherical molecules confined between two walls. We find that the dynamic response arises from two competing contributions: the effective stiffness of n + 1 springs in series and softening due to strain fluctuations. In particular, the latter are the origin of the oscillatory behavior of the stiffness and the damping coefficient. The dissipation is strongest at the minima of the stiffness; the inverse behavior may occur for a modulated relaxation time. As a corollary we show that confined molecular layers cannot be described as Maxwell fluids.     

Stabilization of the radial equilibrium of a tethered satellite with respect to out-of-plane initial perturbations

We investigate the stabilization of the radial equilibrium of a tethered satellite by tension control, if both in-plane and out-of-plane deviations from the vertical position are taken into account. While in-plane perturbations can be eliminated in finite time, the length rate change of the tether acts as parametric control on the out-of-plane deviations. Therefore the control becomes less effective, if the perturbation decreases. In order to improve the convergence we investigate the optimal control problem assuming no costs for the applied tension force but restricting the control force to a finite interval. For tether cconfigurations close to the vertical target position this approach yields a solution with singular control, which leads to a faster decay of the deviations. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Mode-coupling theory for the dynamics of tunnelling systems in dielectrics

A mode-coupling theory (MCT) is presented for the spin-boson model with a spectral density which accounts for a heat bath made up of lattice vibrations of a dielectric solid (superohmic dissipation). A usual decoupling approximation provides a set of non-linear integral equations which are solved both numerically by iteration on a computer and analytically by means of a frequency dependent ansatz for the memory functions. There is a transition to incoherent motion at a temperatureT ^* where the bare two-level energy is equal to the damping rate, in contradiction to results obtained previously from a path integral formulation. The discrepancy arises since in the MCT the relevant self-energy function does not exhibit a 1/z-pole atz=0. For tunnelling systems in dielectrics this yields a new relaxation mechanism due to incoherent tunnelling: the present results might require to modify some of the basic assumptions of the standard tunnelling model for dielectric glasses.