[.ca] Control of Spacecraft and Aircraft (ISBN 0691087822)

Useful book:
I am at a loss on what to say about this book. In some ways the book is not what it should be as in the analysis of spacecraft attitude control. The emphasis here is the simplification of the nonlinear Euler equations to simple linear equations to which bang-bang and other control types are then applied. Nothing wrong with that. But if he had left the equations nolinear and applied sliding mode control the results would have been virtually identical and more profound and usable. At the same time there is much information on spacecraft attitude control in the book which is nearly impossible to find elsewhere. The same is true of helicopter and airplane control. The complete emphasis on LQR control is quaint as it is the best possible control. What about more realistic control systems for real aircraft? There is a little in the book on this but very little. The sections on control of flexible systems correspond to the way many missle modelers approach the problem because of its simplicity and usefulness and several useful and interesting examples are worked out. Overall this is a useful reference for certain subject areas but it takes a sophisticated reader to separate the wheat from the chaff. It must be admitted, however, that learning the entire book would not be a bad thing for anyone. Just limiting.