Paolo Gasbarri

Università degli Studi "La Sapienza" di Roma, Dipartimento di ingegneria meccanica e aerospaziale, Faculty Member

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Full Professor in Aerospace Structures
at the School of Aerospace Engineering of Rome La Sapienza.

1989 Laurea Degree in Aeronautical Engineering at University of Rome “La Sapienza”
1989 National license to practice engineering
1992 PhD in Aerospace Engineering
1993-1996 System Engineer at Alenia Space
1996-2004 Assistant Professor in Aerospace Structures at Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
1997 Visiting Professor at the Deutschen Zentrum fur Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR) (Germany)
2005-2019 Associate Professor in Design of Aerospace Structures at “La Sapienza”.
2020- present Full Professor in Design of Aerospace Structures and Mulibody Dynamics at “La Sapienza”.
2011 Visiting Professor at UNISINOS, Applied Mathematics Department
2015 Visiting Professor ITA, Istituto Tecnòlogico de Aeronatica

Past activites
Before joining the University of Rome, Dr. Paolo Gasbarri was a Research Fellow in Alenia Spazio (now Thales Alenia Space), one of the leading Italian aerospace industries where he was involved in several research areas concerning Space Technology:
1) Design and Analysis of Space Systems;
2) Attitude Control Design;
3) Aerothermodynamics Analysis of Space Reentry Vehicles;
4) Vibration control of Space Structures.

He was also responsible for the following projects:
1)Aerothermodynamic analysis of Italian Reentry Unmanned Capsule, CARINA;
2)Influence of liquid sloshing and structural elastic frequencies on attitude dynamics of ARTEMIS satellite;
3)PICS project (Integrated Platform for Control Systems): The objective of this research was to develop an autonomous spacecraft simulator and test-bed; later the simulator was used in Alenia for the development and validation of control algorithms as well as various hardware elements necessary for satellite attitude control design. The work was successfully implemented on the Italian Army satellite called SICRAL.
4)Experimental qualification tests of the orbital attitude control system of the scientific ESA satellite ARTEMIS

Research
The research activities carried out by Paolo Gasbarri deal with two basic themes:
- Composite structures and aeroelastic optimization of composite wings
- Dynamic behavior of the structures in space environment, and multi-body dynamics

International Organizations
1996-2014 Member of the Italian Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics (A.I.D.A.A)
2000-2005 Italian representative at the Structures and Material Panel of the NATO Research Technology Agency (RTO)
2003 Member of the Material and Structures Committee of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF)
2003 Member of the International Organizing Committee of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC)
2006 Corresponding Member of the International Astronautical Academy (IAA)
2007 Chair of the Material and Structures Committee of IAF
2008 Full Member of the International Astronautical Academy (IAA).
2009-Present Member of the Technical Committee of the IAF
2012-Present Member of the board of A.I.D.A:A
Dissemination of research and participation to academic life
In the last seven years Paolo Gasbarri was the advisor of several Italian PhD students. He was also the external advisor for a Brazilian PhD in Applied Mathematics and for a Brazilian Post Doc in Dynamics Simulations of Aerospace Slender Flexible Bodies.

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University of Technology Sydney

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Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Papers by Paolo Gasbarri

A Study on Structural Health Monitoring of a Large Space Antenna via Distributed Sensors and Deep Learning

Sensors, Dec 29, 2022

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more

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Automated nested co-design framework for structural/control dynamics in flexible space systems

Acta Astronautica, Sep 1, 2022

A model predictive control for attitude stabilization and spin control of a spacecraft with a flexible rotating payload

Acta Astronautica, Oct 1, 2022

Modelling, Dynamic Analysis and Robotic Control Strategies for the Deorbiting Operations of the ESA Satellite Envisat

This master thesis was developed in the context of the e.Deorbit project. Firstly, the force for ... more This master thesis was developed in the context of the e.Deorbit project. Firstly, the force for the deorbiting manoeuvre was analysed in order to find a profile that does not induce detachment between the Servicer module and Envisat when a clamping mechanism is not considered. Then, the proposed configurations with a four points clamping connection and a clamping to the payload adapter of Envisat were modelled and analysed. A special focus was posed on the flexibility of the 16 meter long solar panel of Envisat: this was considered divided in rigid sections and flexible joints. Additionally, the detumbling manoeuvre was analysed in order to validate the feasibility of this manoeuvre with the robotic arm grasped to the target. The main part of the work was to analyse a closed loop configuration: the aim was to reduce the oscillation of the solar panel during the deorbiting operations. In order to simulate that configuration, a the Loop Joint method by Featherstone was implemented and included in the SpaceDyn library. After testing the written algorithms, a damping control was simulated.

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Design, realization and characterization of a free-floating platform for flexible satellite control experiments

Acta Astronautica, Sep 1, 2023

Determination of kinematic state of an orbiting multibody using GNSS signals

ABSTRACT Precise attitude determination of the members of a free-flying multibody system is a not... more ABSTRACT Precise attitude determination of the members of a free-flying multibody system is a not so immediate task, due essentially to the large motion of its appendages coupled with their relevant flexibility effects. In fact, sensors used to this aim in current projects, such as optical encoders usually positioned near the joints of each arm, are almost blind to these effects, and clusters of specific redundant sensors should, therefore, be required in order to reconstruct both elastic deformations and rigid motion.Satellite navigation systems (GNSS) offer a suitable and reliable solution to this problem. To exploit the phase of the signal, instead of the traditional pseudo random code, ensures a very high accuracy of the order of magnitude of centimeter. Such a process requires the solution of an initial ambiguity problem, related to the number of integer wavelength included in the length of the member.The aim of the paper is to investigate the capability of this GNSS based technique to reconstruct the kinematics of a flexible multibody system orbiting around the Earth. This analysis requires a simulation including both the multibody dynamics and the navigation system constellation to define the satellites lines-of-sight at each time step.Concerning multibody equations of motion, a Newtonian formulation is adopted in this work. A special attention is required about the choice of the state variables. As the internal forces are associated to the relative displacements between the bodies, which are small fractions of the distance of the multibody spacecraft from the center of the Earth, the task of obtaining these forces from inertial coordinates could be impossible from a numerical point of view. So, the problem is reformulated in such a way that the equation of motion of the system contains global equations, with no internal forces, and local equations, with internal forces. In the latter, only quantities of the same order of the spacecraft dimensions are present.Accuracies achievable in LEO orbit with current GPS and upcoming Galileo systems are evaluated to show the interest of the proposed technique.

Performance Analysis and Gains Tuning Procedure for a Controlled Space Manipulator Used for Non-cooperative Target Capture Operations

Aerotecnica Missili & Spazio, 2018

In the near future robotic systems will be playing an increasingly important role in space applic... more In the near future robotic systems will be playing an increasingly important role in space applications such as repairing, refuelling, re-orbiting spacecraft and cleaning up the increasing amount of space debris. Space Manipulator Systems (SMSs) are robotic systems made of a bus (which has its own actuators such as thrusters and reaction wheels) equipped with one or more deployable arms. The present paper focuses on the issue of maintaining a stable first contact between the arms terminal parts (i.e. the end-effectors) and a non-cooperative target satellite, before the actual grasp is accomplished. The selected approach is a modified version of the Impedance Control algorithm, in which the end-effector is commanded in order to make it behave like a mass-spring-damper system regardless of the reaction motion of the base, so to absorb the impact energy. A very important aspect in the analysis of the control performance is the evaluation of the field of applicability of the controller itself. In the present work the influence of this issue on the effectiveness of the proposed control architecture will be analysed, together with the control gains tuning which allows for a robust achievement of the mission requirements. Several numerical results will be presented and discussed.

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Multi-Damage Detection in Composite Space Structures via Deep Learning

Sensors

The diagnostics of environmentally induced damages in composite structures plays a critical role ... more The diagnostics of environmentally induced damages in composite structures plays a critical role for ensuring the operational safety of space platforms. Recently, spacecraft have been equipped with lightweight and very large substructures, such as antennas and solar panels, to meet the performance demands of modern payloads and scientific instruments. Due to their large surface, these components are more susceptible to impacts from orbital debris compared to other satellite locations. However, the detection of debris-induced damages still proves challenging in large structures due to minimal alterations in the spacecraft global dynamics and calls for advanced structural health monitoring solutions. To address this issue, a data-driven methodology using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks is applied here to the case of damaged solar arrays. Finite element models of the solar panels are used to reproduce damage locations, which are selected based on the most critical risk areas in ...

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Nonlinear attitude maneuvering of a flexible spacecraft for space debris tracking and collision avoidance

Acta Astronautica

Robust Collocated Control of Large Flexible Space Structures

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Space webs based on rotating tethered formations

Acta Astronautica, 2009

ABSTRACT Several on-going studies indicate the interest for large, light orbiting structures, sha... more ABSTRACT Several on-going studies indicate the interest for large, light orbiting structures, shaped as fish nets or webs: along the ropes of the web small spacecraft can move like spiders to position and re-locate, at will, pieces of hardware devoted to specific missions. The concept could be considered as an intermediate solution between the large monolithic structure, heavy and expensive to realize, but easy to control, and the formations of satellites, where all system members are completely free and should manoeuvre in order to acquire a desired configuration. Instead, the advantage of having a &amp;quot;hard-but-light&amp;quot; link among the different grids lays in the partition of the tasks among system components and in a possible overall reduction of the control system complexity and cost. Unfortunately, there is no stable configuration for an orbiting, two-dimensional web made by light, flexible tethers which cannot support compression forces. A possible solution is to make use of centrifugal forces to pull the net, with a reduced number of simple thrusters located at the tips of the tethers to initially acquire the required spin. In this paper a dynamic analysis of a simplified rotating web is performed, in order to evaluate the spinning velocity able to satisfy the requirement for the stability of the system. The model adopted overlaps simpler elements, each of them given by a tether (made up of a number of linear finite elements) connecting two extreme bodies accommodating the spinning thrusters. The combination of these &amp;quot;diameter-like&amp;quot; elements provides the web, shaped according to the specific requirements. The net is primarily considered as subjected to Keplerian attraction and J2 and drag perturbations only, but its behaviour under thermal inputs is also investigated. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Active vibration control of large space structures: Modelling and experimental testing of offset piezoelectric stack actuators

Acta Astronautica

Optimisation and thermal control of a multi-layered structure for space electronic devices

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

Abstract All electronic devices, due to Joule effect, present heat dissipation, when they are ele... more

A variational approach for solving an inverse vibration problem

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering, 2006

The present investigation is focused on the solution of a dynamic inverse problem which is concer... more The present investigation is focused on the solution of a dynamic inverse problem which is concerned with the assessment of damage in structures by means of measured vibration data. This inverse problem has been presented as a optimization problem and has been solved through the use of the iterative regularization method, i.e. the Conjugate Gradient method. The results have been presented in a satisfactory form when a small structure with few degrees-of-freedom (DOF) is considered, however when a higher DOF-structure is considered, the simple application of the iterative regularization method is not more satisfactory, being necessary the application of an additional methodology. To solve this difficulty, in this paper a new approach, based on the use of the Genetic Algorithm (GA) method has been proposed. The GA method is used to generate a primary solution which is employed as the initial guess for the conjugate gradient method. The application of this new approach has been showed that better results can be achieved, although the computational time for the application here analyzed could be increase. The damage estimation has been evaluated using noiseless and noisy synthetic experimental data, and the reported results are concerned with a truss and a beam-like structures both modeled through a finite element technique. Moreover, in order to take into account the reduced set of experimental data to be employed in the optimization algorithm, a Guyan reduction technique has been adopted on the finite element formulation.

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The damage identification problem: a hybrid approach

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

ABSTRACT he present investigation is focused on the solution of a dynamic inverse problem which i... more ABSTRACT he present investigation is focused on the solution of a dynamic inverse problem which is concerned with the assessment of damage in structures by means of measured vibration data. This inverse problem have been presented as an optimization problem, and it has been solved through the use of the iterative regularization method, i.e., the conjugate gradient (CG) method. Good results have been obtained for a structure with few degrees-of-freedom (DOF). However, when a structure with higher DOF is considered, the simple application of the iterative regularization method is anymore satisfactory, being necessary the application of an additional methodology. For overcoming this difficulty, a new approach is proposed. A genetic algorithm (GA) method is used to generate a primary solution, which is employed as the initial guess for the conjugate gradient method. With the application of this new approach good results can be achieved for structures with higher DOF. The damage estimation has been evaluated using noiseless synthetic experimental data, and the reported results are concerned with a lumped-parameter system

A solution for the structural stiffness estimation problem through the variational approach

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

A Comparison Between Frequency and Time Domain Approaches for Determining a Structural Damage Using the Adjoint Method

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

Optimization of an Aeronautical Composite Structure through a Parallel Multilevel Approach

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

Some Results on Damage Detection Using Variational Approach

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

ABSTRACT The present investigation is focused on the solution of a dynamic inverse problem which ... more ABSTRACT The present investigation is focused on the solution of a dynamic inverse problem which is concerned with the assessment of damage in structures by means of measured vibration data. This inverse problem has been presented as an optimization problem which has been solved through the use of a hybrid approach where the conjugate gradient method (CGM) with the adjoint equation, also called variational method, is employed coupled with the Genetic Algorithm (GA) method. Moreover, a general formulation for the application of the variational method is presented which allows the use of any kind of experimental data. The solution for the damage estimation problem has been obtained using synthetic experimental data, and the reported results are concerned with space truss structures modeled through the finite element technique. Pages: 1456-1464

A Solution for the Damage Assessment Problem by the Adjoint Equation Method

by Leonardo D Chiwiacowsky and Paolo Gasbarri

A Study on Structural Health Monitoring of a Large Space Antenna via Distributed Sensors and Deep Learning

Sensors, Dec 29, 2022

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more

Download

Automated nested co-design framework for structural/control dynamics in flexible space systems

Acta Astronautica, Sep 1, 2022

A model predictive control for attitude stabilization and spin control of a spacecraft with a flexible rotating payload

Acta Astronautica, Oct 1, 2022

Modelling, Dynamic Analysis and Robotic Control Strategies for the Deorbiting Operations of the ESA Satellite Envisat

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