Finite‐time attitude stabilization for rigid spacecraft

This paper investigates the finite‐time attitude stabilization problem for rigid spacecraft in the presence of inertia uncertainties and external disturbances. Three nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) controllers are designed to make the spacecraft system converge to its equilibrium point or a region around its equilibrium point in finite time. In addition, these novel controllers are singularity‐free, and the presented adaptive NTSM control (ANTSMC) laws are chattering‐free. A rigorous proof of finite‐time convergence is developed. The proposed ANTSMC algorithms combine NTSM, adaptation and a constant plus power rate reaching law. Because the algorithms require no information about inertia uncertainties and external disturbances, they can be used in practical systems, where such knowledge is typically unavailable. Simulation results support the theoretical analysis.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attitude stabilization of rigid spacecraft with finite‐time convergence

The problem of attitude control for a spacecraft model which is nonlinear in dynamics with inertia uncertainty and external disturbance is investigated in this paper. Two sliding mode controllers are proposed to force the state variables of the closed‐loop system to converge to the origin in finite time. Specially, the second control design consists of the estimation of the uncertainty and disturbance by adaptive method and thus it achieves the decrease of undesired chattering effectively. Also, simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the control strategies. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comments on ‘attitude stabilization of rigid spacecraft with finite‐time convergence’

This note points out that Theorems 1 and 2 in Zhu, Xia, Fu (Int. J. Robust Nonlinear Control 2011 21 (6):686–702) are incorrect. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite‐time attitude control of multiple rigid spacecraft using terminal sliding mode

This paper investigates the control problem of finite‐time attitude synchronization and tracking for a group of rigid spacecraft in the presence of environmental disturbances. A new fast terminal sliding manifold is developed for multiple spacecraft formation flying under the undirected graph topology. On the basis of the finite‐time control and adaptive control strategies, two novel decentralized finite‐time control laws are proposed to force the spacecraft attitude error dynamics to converge to small regions in finite time, and adaptive control is applied to reject the disturbance. The finite‐time convergence and stability of the closed‐loop system can be guaranteed by Lyapunov theory. Simulation examples are provided to illustrate the feasibility of the control algorithm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reaction wheel fault‐tolerant finite‐time control for spacecraft attitude tracking without unwinding

This article proposes fault‐tolerant finite‐time attitude tracking control of a rigid spacecraft actuated by four reaction wheels without unwinding problem in the presence of external disturbances, uncertain inertia parameter, and actuator faults. First, a novel antiunwinding finite‐time attitude tracking control law is derived with a designed control signal which works within a known actuator‐magnitude constraint using a continuous nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (NFTSM) concept. Second, a finite‐time disturbance observer (FTDO) is introduced to estimate a lumped disturbance due to external disturbances, uncertain inertia parameter, actuator faults, and input saturation. Third, a composite controller is developed which consists of a feedback control based on the continuous NFTSM method and compensation term based on the FTDO. The global finite‐time stability is proved using Lyapunov stability theory. Moreover, the singularity and unwinding phenomenon are avoided. Simulation results are conducted under actuator constraints in the presence of external disturbances, inertia uncertainty, and actuator faults and results are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. In addition, to show the superiority of the proposed control method over the recently reported control methods, comparative analysis is also presented.     

Adaptive decentralized finite‐time output tracking control for MIMO interconnected nonlinear systems with output constraints and actuator faults

In this work, we present a novel adaptive decentralized finite‐time fault‐tolerant control algorithm for a class of multi‐input–multi‐output interconnected nonlinear systems with output constraint requirements for each vertex. The actuator for each system can be subject to unknown multiplicative and additive faults. Parametric system uncertainties that model the system dynamics for each vertex can be effectively dealt with by the proposed control scheme. The control input gain functions of the nonlinear systems can be not fully known and state dependent. Backstepping design with a tan‐type barrier Lyapunov function and a new structure of stabilizing function is presented. We show that under the proposed control scheme, with the use of graph theory, finite‐time convergence of the system output tracking error into a small set around zero is guaranteed for each vertex, while the time‐varying constraint requirement on the system output tracking error for each vertex will not be violated during operation. An illustrative example on 2 interacting 2‐degree‐of‐freedom robot manipulators is presented in the end to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.     

Finite‐time attitude‐tracking control for rigid spacecraft with actuator failures and saturation constraints

In this article, the problem of finite‐time attitude‐tracking control for rigid spacecraft is addressed. Uncertainties caused by external disturbances, unknown inertial matrix, actuator failures, and saturation constraints are tackled simultaneously. First, a smooth function that is more qualified to approximate the standard saturation characteristics is presented to deal with the actuator saturation constraints. Second, a fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode (FNTSM) manifold is constructed as a foundation of controllers design. By incorporating the fuzzy logic system into FNTSM technique, a less demanding solution of coping with model uncertainties is provided because the requirement of a prior knowledge of unknown inertial parameters and external disturbances in many existing achievements is removed. To reduce the number of parameters to be estimated, the norm approximation approach is exploited. Subsequently, an antichattering attitude controller is presented such that all the tracking errors converge into arbitrary small domains around the origin in finite time. The result is further extended to obtain a fault‐tolerant controller against completely failed actuators. Finally, numerical simulation is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme and comparison with relevant literature demonstrates its high performance. Furthermore, an experiment for the large satellite Hubble Space Telescope is carried out to validate the practical feasibility.     

Decentralised finite-time attitude synchronisation and tracking control for rigid spacecraft

The problem of finite-time attitude synchronisation and tracking for a group of rigid spacecraft nonlinear dynamics is investigated in this paper. First of all, in the presence of environmental disturbance, a novel decentralised control law is proposed to ensure that the spacecraft attitude error dynamics can converge to the sliding surface in finite time; then the final practical finite-time stability of the attitude error dynamics can be guaranteed in small regions. Furthermore, a modified finite-time control law is proposed to address the control chattering. The control law can guarantee a group of spacecraft to attain desired time-varying attitude and angular velocity while maintaining attitude synchronisation with other spacecraft in the formation. Simulation examples are provided to illustrate the feasibility of the control algorithm presented in this paper.     

Adaptive multivariable finite‐time continuous fault‐tolerant control of rigid spacecraft

The problem of fault‐tolerant attitude tracking control for rigid spacecraft in the presence of inertia uncertainties, actuator faults, and external disturbances is investigated in this paper. A novel adaptive finite‐time continuous fault‐tolerant control strategy is developed by combining the fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode surface and the adaptive multivariable super‐twisting algorithm, which improves the robustness while preserving high accuracy and finite‐time convergence. The main features of the control strategy are the double‐layer adaptive algorithm based on equivalent control, which ensures nonoverestimation of the control gain and the continuous controller, which maintains better property of chattering reduction. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed controller is illustrated by numerical simulations.     

Adaptive fault‐tolerant spacecraft attitude control using a novel integral terminal sliding mode

The attitude tracking of a rigid spacecraft is approached in the presence of uncertain inertias, unknown disturbances, and sudden actuator faults. First, a novel integral terminal sliding mode (ITSM) is designed such that the sliding motion realizes the action of a quaternion‐based nonlinear proportional‐derivative controller. More precisely, on the ITSM, the attitude dynamics behave equivalently to an uncertainty‐free system, and finite‐time convergence of the tracking error is achieved almost globally. A basic ITSM controller is then designed to ensure the ITSM from onset when an upper bound on the system uncertainties is known. Further, to remove this requirement, adaptive techniques are employed to compensate for the uncertainties, and the resultant adaptive ITSM controller stabilizes the system states to a small neighborhood around the sliding surface in finite time. The proposed schemes avoid the singularity intrinsic to terminal sliding mode‐based controllers and the unwinding phenomenon associated with some quaternion‐based controllers. Numerical examples demonstrate the advantageous features of the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

飞轮安装偏差的过驱动航天器有限时间姿态控制

针对反作用飞轮安装存在偏差的过驱动航天器姿态跟踪问题, 提出一种有限时间姿态补偿控制策略. 通过设计自适应滑模控制器保证实现对不确定性转动惯量与外部干扰的鲁棒控制, 同时实现对飞轮安装偏差的补偿控制, 并应用Lyapunov 稳定性理论证明了该控制器能够在有限时间内实现姿态跟踪控制. 最后, 将该控制器应用于某型航天器的姿态跟踪控制, 仿真结果验证了所提出方法的有效性.     

Almost global finite‐time stabilization of rigid body attitude dynamics using rotation matrices

This work considers continuous finite‐time stabilization of rigid body attitude dynamics using a coordinate‐free representation of attitude on the Lie group of rigid body rotations in three dimensions, SO(3). Using a Hölder continuous Morse–Lyapunov function, a finite‐time feedback stabilization scheme for rigid body attitude motion to a desired attitude with continuous state feedback is obtained. Attitude feedback control with finite‐time convergence has been considered in the past using the unit quaternion representation. However, it is known that the unit quaternion representation of attitude is ambiguous, with two antipodal unit quaternions representing a single rigid body attitude. Continuous feedback control using unit quaternions may therefore lead to the unstable unwinding phenomenon if this ambiguity is not resolved in the control design, and this has adverse effects on actuators, settling time, and control effort expended. The feedback control law designed here leads to almost global finite‐time stabilization of the attitude motion of a rigid body with Hölder continuous feedback to the desired attitude. As a result, this control scheme avoids chattering in the presence of measurement noise, does not excite unmodeled high‐frequency structural dynamics, and can be implemented with actuators that can only provide continuous control inputs. Numerical simulation results for a spacecraft in low Earth orbit, obtained using a Lie group variational integrator, confirm the theoretically obtained stability and robustness properties of this attitude feedback stabilization scheme. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive sliding‐mode control for Mars entry trajectory tracking with finite‐time convergence

This paper presents a novel adaptive sliding‐mode control (ASMC) method for Mars entry guidance and the finite‐time convergence in the presence of large uncertainties can be guaranteed. With the help of gain adaptive law, the nonoverestimating value of control gains can be achieved, and then, the chattering can be attenuated by the proposed ASMC method. Meanwhile, the extended state observer is introduced to estimate and compensate for uncertainties and the nonoverestimating problem is resolved further. In addition, the proposed method does not require any knowledge on the upper bound of uncertainty, which yields to be used in practical systems. Finally, the numerical simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed guidance law.     

Adaptive event‐triggered global fast finite‐time control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems

This article designs an adaptive event‐triggered controller to solve the problem of global finite‐time stabilization for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. By using the symbol function technique, the event‐triggered error is completely compensated, the adaptive technique and the back‐stepping method are simultaneously applied to the controller design, and the new way of designing controller is completed on the basis of fast finite‐time stability theory. Subsequently, taking Lyapunov stability theorem into account, the system stability is proved, and the system is demonstrated by contradiction to be non‐zeno. Finally, giving a simulation example to display the feasibility of this method.     

Adaptive finite‐time fault‐tolerant tracking control for a class of MIMO nonlinear systems with output constraints

In this work, we present a novel adaptive finite‐time fault‐tolerant control algorithm for a class of multi‐input multi‐output nonlinear systems with constraint requirement on the system output tracking error. Both parametric and nonparametric system uncertainties can be effectively dealt with by the proposed control scheme. The gain functions of the nonlinear systems under discussion, especially the control input gain function, can be not fully known and state‐dependent. Backstepping design with a tan‐type barrier Lyapunov function and a new structure of stabilizing function is presented. We show that under the proposed control scheme, finite‐time convergence of the output tracking error into a small set around zero is guaranteed, while the constraint requirement on the system output tracking error will not be violated during operation. An illustrative example on a robot manipulator model is presented in the end to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed fault‐tolerant control design for spacecraft finite‐time attitude synchronization

This paper develops two distributed finite‐time fault‐tolerant control algorithms for attitude synchronization of multiple spacecraft with a dynamic virtual leader in the presence of modeling uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults. The leader gives commands only to a subset of the followers, and the communication flow between followers is directed. By employing a novel distributed nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode and adaptive mechanism, a distributed finite‐time fault‐tolerant control law is proposed to guarantee all the follower spacecraft that finite‐time track a dynamic virtual leader. Then utilizing three distributed finite‐time sliding mode estimators, an estimator‐based distributed finite‐time fault‐tolerant control law is proposed using only the followers' estimates of the virtual leader. Both of them do not require online identification of the actuator faults and provide robustness, finite‐time convergence, fault‐tolerant, disturbance rejection, and high control precision. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to evaluate the theoretical results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

具有执行器故障的四旋翼无人机有限时间容错控制

本文主要研究了四旋翼无人机在外部干扰、执行器存在部分失效和偏置故障并发情况下有限时间轨迹跟踪的控制问题. 通过分析四旋翼无人机动力学特性, 构建了带有外部干扰、执行器机构故障的动力学模型. 基于鲁棒全局快速终端滑模控制算法, 设计了一种有限时间容错控制器, 提高了系统对故障的响应速度. 其次, 针对常值/时变故障和干扰,在控制器设计中采用改进的连续函数进行补偿, 减少了由切换函数引起的系统抖振, 并基于Lyapunov函数对控制器的稳定性进行了分析. 最后, 通过仿真实验验证了所设计控制器的有效性和可靠性, 同时存在执行器故障和外部干扰的情况下, 无人机能够实现较好的轨迹跟踪性能.     

Robust adaptive finite‐time parameter estimation and control for robotic systems

This paper studies adaptive parameter estimation and control for nonlinear robotic systems based on parameter estimation errors. A framework to obtain an expression of the parameter estimation error is proposed first by introducing a set of auxiliary filtered variables. Then three novel adaptive laws driven by the estimation error are presented, where exponential error convergence is proved under the conventional persistent excitation (PE) condition; the direct measurement of the time derivatives of the system states are avoided. The adaptive laws are modified via a sliding mode technique to achieve finite‐time convergence, and an online verification of the alternative PE condition is introduced. Leakage terms, functions of the estimation error, are incorporated into the adaptation laws to avoid windup of the adaptation algorithms. The adaptive algorithm applied to robotic systems permits that tracking control and exact parameter estimation are achieved simultaneously in finite time using a terminal sliding mode (TSM) control law. In this case, the PE condition can be replaced with a sufficient richness requirement of the command signals and thus is verifiable a priori. The potential singularity problem encountered in TSM controls is remedied by introducing a two‐phase control procedure. The robustness of the proposed methods against disturbances is investigated. Simulations based on the ‘Bristol‐Elumotion‐Robotic‐Torso II’ (BERT II) are provided to validate the efficacy of the introduced methods. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributed robust finite‐time attitude containment control for multiple rigid bodies with uncertainties

This paper investigates the distributed robust finite‐time attitude containment control for multiple rigid bodies with uncertainties including parametric uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator failures. Two novel types of distributed control laws are designed corresponding to two different cases, respectively, and both of them can drive the orientations of the followers into the convex hull formed by the orientations of leaders in a finite time. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed design. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive estimation of component faults and actuator faults for nonlinear one‐sided Lipschitz systems

Fault estimation for classical nonlinear Lipschitz systems has been subject to several research works. So far, much less interest has been given to the more generalized class of systems, namely, one‐sided Lipchitz systems. Dealing with component faults and actuator faults, only very few works have been done to reconstruct these types of faults for this new class of systems. A major limitation of the previous works is that the fault vector to be estimated there does not give any information about the actual faulty physical parameters of the system, so component faults and actuator faults are not distinguishable. In this paper, a set of possible faulty parameters in the system is estimated. Component faults and actuator faults are separated and distinguished. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown through simulations for a numerical example.