Finite-time sliding mode attitude control for rigid spacecraft without angular velocity measurement

The continuous finite-time nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) attitude tracking control for rigid spacecraft is investigated. Firstly, a finite-time attitude controller combined with a new adaptive update law is designed. Different from existing controllers, the proposed controller is inherently continuous and the chattering is effectively reduced. Then, an adaptive model-free finite-time state observer (AMFFTSO) and an angular velocity calculation algorithm (AVCA) are developed to estimate the unknown angular velocity. The unique feature of the proposed method is that the finite-time estimation of angular velocity is achieved and no prior knowledge of quaternion derivative upper bound is needed. Next, based on the estimated angular velocity, a finite-time attitude controller with only attitude measurement is developed. Finally, some simulations are presented and the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is illustrated.     

Chattering-free full-order recursive sliding mode control for finite-time attitude synchronization of rigid spacecraft

This paper investigates a quaternion-based finite-time cooperative attitude synchronization and tracking of multiple rigid spacecraft with a virtual leader subject to bounded external disturbances. Firstly, the communication network between followers is assumed to be an undirected graph and every follower can get a direct access to the virtual leader, by using two neighborhood attitude error signals, a novel chattering-free recursive full-order sliding mode control algorithm is proposed such that all follower spacecraft synchronize to the virtual leader in finite time. In the proposed algorithm, the sliding mode surface is constructed by two layers of sliding mode surfaces, which are called as the outer and the inner sliding mode surfaces. To achieve finite-time performance of sliding mode dynamics, the outer sliding mode surface is designed as a terminal sliding mode manifold, and the inner one is designed as a fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode manifold, respectively. Then, to reduce the heavy communication burden, a distributed recursive full-order sliding mode control law is designed by introducing a distributed finite-time sliding mode estimator such that only a subset of the group members has access to the virtual leader. Finally, a numerical example is illustrated to demonstrate the validity of the proposed results.     

Mean square bounded attitude coordination control of spacecraft formation with stochastic uncertainties

This paper addresses the attitude coordination control problem of spacecraft formation on $SO\left(3\right)$ with attitude constraints and stochastic uncertainties. To achieve the control objective, the attitude coordination control law is designed based on the behavioral formation approach and the modified super-twisting control techniques. The sufficient conditions are given for the closed-loop stochastic SFF system to reach the mean square bounded attitude coordination without breaking the attitude constraints. These conditions clearly indicate the way to select the control law parameters, which is convenient in practice. Under these conditions, upper bounds of the system state errors are explicitly estimated, which depends on the stochastic uncertainties, the behavior weights, and the control law parameters. Simulation results verify the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed control law.     

Sliding mode attitude tracking of rigid spacecraft with disturbances

The attitude tracking control problem of a spacecraft nonlinear model with external disturbances and inertia uncertainties is addressed in this paper. First, a new sliding mode controller is designed to ensure the asymptotic convergence of the attitude and angular velocity tracking errors against external disturbances and inertia uncertainties by using a modified differentiator to estimate the total disturbances. Second, an adaptive algorithm is applied to compensating the disturbances, by which another sliding mode controller is successfully designed to achieve a high performance on the attitude tracking in the presence of the inertia uncertainties, external disturbances and actuator saturations. Finally, simulation results are presented to illustrate effectiveness of the control strategies.     

Decentralized event-triggered finite-time attitude consensus control of multiple spacecraft under directed graph

This article investigates the finite-time consensus problem for the attitude system of multiple spacecraft under directed graph, where the communication bandwidth constraint, inertia matrix uncertainties and external disturbances are considered. An event-triggered communication mechanism is developed to address the problem of communication bandwidth constraint. In this event-triggered mechanism, spacecraft sends their attitude information to their neighbors only when the given event is triggered. Furthermore, an adaptive law is designed to counteract the effect of inertia matrix uncertainties and external disturbances. Then, a finite-time attitude consensus tracking control scheme is proposed based on the event-triggered communication mechanism and adaptive law. The proposed control scheme can guarantee the finite-time stability and convergence of the multiple spacecraft systems and exclude the Zeno phenomenon. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.     

Event-triggered backstepping control for attitude stabilization of spacecraft

To decrease the communication frequency between the controller and the actuator, this paper addresses the spacecraft attitude control problem by adopting the event-triggered strategy. First of all, a backstepping-based inverse optimal attitude control law is proposed, where both the virtual control law and the actual control law are respectively optimal with respect to certain cost functionals. Then, an event-triggered scheme is proposed to realize the obtained inverse optimal attitude control law. By designing the event triggering mechanism elaborately, it is guaranteed that the trivial solution of the closed-loop system is globally exponentially stable and there is no Zeno phenomenon in the closed-loop system. Further, the obtained event-triggered attitude control law is modified and extended to the more general case when the disturbance torque cannot be ignored. It is proved that all states of the closed-loop system are bounded, the attitude error can be made arbitrarily small ultimately by choosing appropriate design parameters and the Zeno phenomenon is excluded in the closed-loop system. In the proposed event-triggered attitude control approaches, the control signal transmitted from the controller to the actuator is only updated at the triggered time instant when the accumulated error exceeds the threshold defined elaborately. Simulation results show that by using the proposed event-triggered attitude control approach, the communication burden can be significantly reduced compared with the traditional spacecraft control schemes realized in the time-triggered way.     

Optimal attitude takeover control for failed spacecraft based on multi-nanosatellites

Attitude takeover control of failed spacecraft, which is a key technology in on-orbit service, has received extensive attention in recent years. In the attitude takeover control mission, inertial parameters of the failed spacecraft are unknown or inaccurate. In the meantime, actuator consumption must be considered owing to the limited fuel or energy of the service spacecraft. Using a failed spacecraft takeover control mission executed by multiple nanosatellites as an example, an optimal attitude takeover control method is proposed in this paper to optimize actuator consumption while addressing model uncertainties. Firstly, an auxiliary nonlinear system is constructed and then a radial basis function neural network is employed to estimate the unknown nonlinear dynamics model. Secondly, an optimal control law is designed by combining the inverse optimal principle, adaptive technique, and backstepping theory. Finally, the Harris Hawks optimization (HHO) is adopted for the control allocation problem of multiple nanosatellites. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Fault-tolerant control for the linearized spacecraft attitude control system with Markovian switching

In this article, the fault-tolerant control is investigated for the spacecraft attitude control system described by a linearized model with Markovian switching. First, the evolution of sudden failures of the spacecraft’s actuators is described by a Markov process. Then, the mathematical model of the spacecraft attitude control system with the Markov jump characteristic fault is established. Taking the uncertainty of the system model and external interference into consideration, a fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed for the established spacecraft attitude control system with the Markov jump characteristic fault by using the sliding mode control technique. Compared with some existing sliding mode controller design methods, the proposed method requires a less total number of LMIs to be solved. The stability and reachability of the resulting closed-loop system under the presented sliding mode control scheme are proven by applying the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, some simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed control method for spacecraft attitude control.     

Robust output feedback attitude tracking control for rigid-flexible coupling spacecraft

This paper investigates the robust attitude tracking control problem for a rigid-flexible coupling spacecraft. First, the dynamic model for a rigid-flexible coupling spacecraft is established based on the first-order approximation method to fully reveal the coupling effect between rigid movement and flexible displacement when the spacecraft is in rapid maneuver. In the condition that flexible vibration measurements are not available, an robust output feedback controller which is independent of model is presented using Lyapunov method with considering state-independent disturbances. To resolve the chattering problem caused by the discontinuous sign function, a modified continuous output feedback controller is proposed by introducing functions with continuous property. Rigorous proof is achieved showing that the proposed control law ensures asymptotic stability and guarantees the attitude of a rigid-flexible spacecraft to track a time-varying reference attitude based on angle and angular velocity measurements only. Finally, simulations are carried out to verify the simplicity and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.     

Barrier function-based prescribed-performance adaptive attitude tracking control for spacecraft with uncertainties

This paper addresses the problem of robust adaptive attitude tracking control for spacecraft with mismatched and matched uncertainties. The idea of disturbance estimation and compensation is introduced into the control design. First, finite-time disturbance observers are developed for different channels of spacecraft based on barrier functions for achieving finite-time asymptotic estimates of unknown bounded uncertainties in the system. Second, a class of prescribed performance functions is considered in the design of the barrier function. The spacecraft attitude adaptive tracking control strategy with finite-time convergence capability and prescribed performance is proposed based on the designed finite-time disturbance observers and barrier function. Finally, the theoretical findings are verified by numerical simulations and compared with the simulation results of existing methods.     

Adaptive coordinated attitude control for spacecraft formation with saturating actuators and unknown inertia

In this paper, an adaptive attitude coordination control problem for spacecraft formation flying is investigated under a general directed communication topology containing a directed spanning tree with a leader as the root. In the presence of unknown time-varying inertia, persistent external disturbances and control input saturation, a novel robust adaptive coordinated attitude control algorithm with no prior knowledge of inertia for spacecraft is proposed to coordinately track the common time-varying reference states. Aiming at optimizing the control algorithm, a dynamic adjustment function is introduced to adjust the control gain according to the tracking errors. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is illustrated through numerical simulation results.     

Minimal energy maneuvering control of a rigid spacecraft with momentum transfer

The main goal of this study is to investigate a minimal energy rest-to-rest maneuvering control problem with open final time of a rigid spacecraft actuated by three orthogonal momentum wheels. Different from conventional shooting methods, this control problem is formulated and solved as a constrained nonlinear programming (NLP) one by utilizing an iterative procedure. In this novel method, the count of control steps is fixed initially and the sampling period is treated as a variable in the optimization process. An approach to find the initial feasible solutions of the NLP problem is also proposed. Since initial feasible solutions can be found easily, the optimization process of the NLP problem can be started from different points to find the minimal energy rest-to-rest maneuver of the rigid spacecraft between two attitudes. To show the feasibility of the proposed method, simulation results are included for illustration.     

Actuator failure compensation and attitude control for rigid satellite by adaptive control using quaternion feedback

The attitude control problem of a rigid satellite with actuator failure uncertainties and external disturbance is addressed using adaptive control method. A discontinuous adaptive failure compensation controller, using unit quaternion and angular velocities feedback, is designed to accommodate the external disturbance and actuator failures which are uncertain in time instants, values and patterns. A common approximate function is used to avoid system chattering caused by such discontinuous control laws. The parameters of external disturbance and failure uncertainties are estimated directly by adaptive laws, and the desired stability and output tracking properties of the adaptive control system are analyzed. Finally, simulation results of a rigid satellite with six reaction wheels are presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed adaptive actuator failure compensation scheme.     

Chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft in a circular orbit near the equatorial plane

This paper deals with chaotic attitude motion of a magnetic rigid spacecraft in a circular orbit near the equatorial plane of the earth. The dynamical model of the problem is derived. The Melnikov analysis is carried out to prove the existence of a complicated nonwandering Cantor set. The dynamical behavior is numerically investigated by means of time history, Poincare map, power spectrum and Lyapunov exponents. Numerical simulations indicate that the onset of chaos is characterized by break of torus as the torque of the magnetic forces is increased.     

Practical fixed-time distributed adaptive fault estimation for attitude synchronization control systems

In this paper, the distributed adaptive fault estimation issue using practical fixed-time design is investigated for attitude synchronization control systems. A distributed fault estimation observer is proposed based on the fixed-time technique. Meanwhile, a novel fixed-time adaptive fault estimation algorithm is also constructed to guarantee convergence rate and improve estimation rapidity. The fault estimation error is uniformly ultimately bounded and is practically fixed-time stable, which converges to the neighborhood of the origin in a fixed time. Finally, simulation results of an attitude synchronization control system are presented to verify the effectiveness of proposed techniques.     

Agile attitude maneuver with active vibration-suppression for flexible spacecraft

This paper addresses the agile attitude maneuver of flexible spacecraft using control moment gyros without modal information. Here, piezoelectric actuators are employed to actively suppress the vibration of flexible appendages. Both the dynamics and the proposed controller are globally developed on the Special Orthogonal Group SO(3), avoiding ambiguities and singularities associated with other attitude representations. More specifically, an observer is first designed to estimate the modal information of vibration. A robust control law is developed by synthesizing a proportional-derivative (PD) controller, an adaptive sliding mode controller, and an active vibration-suppression controller, which use the information of the estimated structural modes. The stability of the closed-loop system is proved using Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, numerical examples are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Three-dimensional predefined-time impact angle control guidance law with field-of-view limit

In this paper, an impact angle control guidance (IACG) law with predefined convergence time and seeker’s field-of-view (FOV) limit is proposed in three-dimensional (3D) scenario. First, a predefined-time error dynamic is developed whose significance is revealed by comparison with conventional methods. Second, based on coupled engagement dynamics, a 3D predefined-time IACG law is derived by applying the proposed error dynamic. To tackle the FOV limit, two auxiliary functions are introduced into the IACG law. The robustness against disturbances and uncertainties is further improved by utilizing the terminal sliding mode technique. With the proposed guidance law, the impact-angle error can converge to zero exactly at a tunable predefined time. Finally, the effectiveness and performance of the proposed IACG law are shown by several simulations with comparative study.     

Barrier Lyapunov function-based adaptive fuzzy attitude tracking control for rigid satellite with input delay and output constraint

This paper investigates the adaptive attitude tracking problem for the rigid satellite involving output constraint, input saturation, input time delay, and external disturbance by integrating barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) and prescribed performance control (PPC). In contrast to the existing approaches, the input delay is addressed by Pade approximation, and the actual control input concerning saturation is obtained by utilizing an auxiliary variable that simplifies the controller design with respect to mean value methods or Nussbaum function-based strategies. Due to the implementation of the BLF control, together with an interval notion-based PPC strategy, not only the system output but also the transformed error produced by PPC are constrained. An adaptive fuzzy controller is then constructed and the predesigned constraints for system output and the transformed error will not be violated. In addition, a smooth switch term is imported into the controller such that the finite time convergence for all error variables is guaranteed for a certain case while the singularity problem is avoided. Finally, simulations are provided to show the effectiveness and potential of the proposed new design techniques.     

Control Lyapunov function optimal sliding mode controllers for attitude tracking of spacecraft

The attitude tracking control problem for a rigid spacecraft using two optimal sliding mode control laws is addressed. Integral sliding mode (ISM) control is applied to combine the first-order sliding mode with optimal control and is applied to quaternion-based spacecraft attitude tracking maneuvres with external disturbances and an uncertainty inertia matrix. For the optimal control part the control Lyapunov function (CLF) approach is used to solve the infinite-time nonlinear optimal control problem, whereas the Lyapunov optimizing control (LOC) method is applied to solve the finite-time nonlinear optimal control problem. The second method of Lyapunov is used to show that tracking is achieved globally. An example of multiaxial attitude tracking maneuvres is presented and simulation results are included to demonstrate and verify the usefulness of the proposed controllers.     

Multi-objective output feedback control for autonomous spacecraft rendezvous

In this paper, the problem of robust output feedback control for a class of spacecraft rendezvous systems is investigated, which contains parameter uncertainty, external disturbance, poles assignment, _H∞-norm$H_{\infty }\mathrm{-}\mathrm{norm}$, variance and input constraints. The aim of this problem is to design a dynamic output feedback controller such that the closed-loop poles are placed within a specified disc, the _H∞$H_{\infty }$ norm of the transfer function from disturbance to output is ensured to be less than a prespecified disturbance attenuation level, the steady-state variance for each state of spacecraft rendezvous system is guaranteed to be less than the prespecified individual upper bound, and the actual control input is confined into a certain range simultaneously. Based on the Lyapunov theory, the existence conditions of such controller are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). An illustrative example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control design method.