Adaptive finite‐time attitude stabilization for rigid spacecraft with actuator faults and saturation constraints

The attitude stabilization problem for rigid spacecraft in the presence of inertial uncertainties, external disturbances, actuator saturations, and actuator faults is addressed in this paper. First, a novel fast terminal sliding mode manifold is designed to avoid the singularity problem while providing high control ability. In addition, fast terminal sliding mode control laws are proposed to make the spacecraft system trajectory fast converge onto the fast terminal sliding mode surface and finally evolve into small region in finite time, which cannot be achieved by the previous literatures. Based on the real sliding mode context, a practical adaptive fast terminal sliding mode control law is presented to guarantee attitude stabilization in finite time. Also, simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the control strategies. Copyright © 2015 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.     

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.     

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.     

Finite‐time sliding mode stabilization using dirty differentiation and disturbance compensation

Novel robust finite‐time stabilizing algorithms are developed side by side for the state and output feedback designs. Being initially developed for a nonlinear cascade second‐order system, these algorithms are straightforwardly extendible to electromechanical systems of relative degree two. The proposed synthesis is based on the disturbance compensation, relying on the dirty differentiation and sliding mode approach, and it is applicable to a wider class of disturbances than that addressed in the literature. Simulation results illustrate the efficiency of the resulting synthesis procedure and support analytical results.     

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.     

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 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.     

Robust stabilization of spacecraft attitude motion under magnetic control through time‐varying integral sliding mode

Magnetic spacecraft attitude control is suitable for missions with moderate pointing and stabilization requirements. It would be especially preferable if an implemented three‐axis magnetic control law guarantees global and moreover robust stabilization. Motivated by this consideration, in this work, the integral sliding mode control method is successfully applied to the purely magnetic attitude control problem for the first time in literature. The resulting magnetic integral sliding mode control system, which is designed via Lyapunov's direct method by taking the four major environmental disturbance torques and the full inertia matrix uncertainty into account, has the expected insensitivity against environmental disturbances in the plane of continuous actuation. Along the instantaneous direction of underactuation, which continuously varies in control space as the satellite moves along the orbit, there is no counteraction to perturbations. However, as seen in the results of the high‐fidelity simulation, state trajectories are ultimately bounded in the vicinity of the reference state independently from the initial state thanks to the proven robustness of the global stability. Performance robustness of the obtained control system against disturbances and model uncertainty is evaluated to be superior through a couple of comparisons with existing control laws even though it is partial due to the intrinsic underactuation in the system.     

Robust adaptive fixed‐time tracking control of 6‐DOF spacecraft fly‐around mission for noncooperative target

The fixed‐time relative position tracking and attitude synchronization control problem of a spacecraft fly‐around mission for a noncooperative target in the presence of parameter uncertainties and external disturbances is investigated. Firstly, a novel and coupled relative position and attitude motion model for a noncooperative fly‐around mission is established. Subsequently, a novel nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (NFTSM) surface is developed, and the explicit estimation of the convergence time independent of initial states is provided. Fair and systematic comparisons among several typical terminal sliding modes show that the designed NFTSM has faster convergence performance than the fast terminal sliding mode. Then, a robust integrated adaptive fixed‐time NFTSM control law with no precise knowledge of the mass and inertia matrix and disturbances by combining the nonsingular terminal sliding mode technique with an adaptive methodology is proposed, which can eliminate the chattering phenomenon and guarantee that the relative position and attitude tracking errors can converge into the small regions containing the origin in fixed time. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.     

Extended state observer-based attitude fault-tolerant control of rigid spacecraft

In this paper, a novel fault-tolerant attitude tracking control is proposed for a rigid spacecraft with uncertain inertia matrix, actuator faults, actuator misalignment and external disturbances. The uncertainty of the inertial matrix is caused by the rotation of solar panels, payload movement and fuel consumption, and actuator faults, which include partially failed and completely failed actuators. A novel extended state observer is proposed to estimate the total uncertainties and a fast nonsingular terminal sliding-mode control scheme is proposed to get a faster, higher control precision. Strict finite-time convergence and the concrete convergence time are given. Finally, all the states of the closed-loop system are guaranteed to converge to the corresponding region in a finite time by choosing appropriate parameters. Simulation and comparison results further show the effectiveness and advantages of this method.     

Fixed‐time attitude tracking control for spacecraft based on adding power integrator technique

In this article, the fixed‐time attitude tracking problem for rigid spacecraft is investigated based on the adding‐a‐power‐integrator control technique. First, a fixed‐time attitude tracking controller is designed to guarantee fixed‐time convergence of tracking errors. Then, by considering the presence of random disturbance and actuator faults, an adaptive fault‐tolerant attitude tracking controller is designed to guarantee tracking errors converge to a residual set of zero in a fixed time. The complete bounds on settling time are derived independently of initial conditions. The simulation results illustrate the highly precise and robust attitude control performance obtained by using the proposed controllers.     

Distributed fixed‐time attitude coordination control for multiple rigid spacecraft

In this paper, the fixed‐time attitude coordination control for multiple rigid spacecraft under an undirected communication graph is investigated. By using the backstepping technique, the distributed fixed‐time observer, and the method of “adding a power integrator,” a distributed fixed‐time attitude coordination control law is designed for a group of spacecraft. The proposed control scheme is nonsingular and can guarantee a group of rigid spacecraft simultaneously tracking a common desired attitude within fixed time even when the time‐varying reference attitude is available only to a subset of the group members. Rigorous analysis is provided to show that the attitude consensus tracking errors can converge to the origin in finite time which is bounded by a fixed constant independent of initial conditions. Numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law.     

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.     

Finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization of a set of nonlinear time‐delay systems

This paper investigates the finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization problem of a set of nonlinear time‐delay systems with general forms and proposes some new simultaneous stabilization results. First, by developing an equivalent form and applying augmented technique, this paper obtains an augmented equivalent form of the original systems. Secondly, based on the equivalent form, we study finite‐time simultaneous stabilization problem and present some new stabilization results by constructing some suitable Lyapunov functionals. Thirdly, using the simultaneous stabilization results obtained, this paper investigates the finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization problem for the set systems and proposes a delay‐dependent robust simultaneous stabilization result. Finally, the study of an illustrative example shows that the results obtained by this paper work well in the finite‐time robust simultaneous stabilization the set systems. It is shown that, by using the method in this paper, the developed conditions do not contain delay terms, which can avoid solving nonlinear mixed matrix inequalities and reduce effectively computational burden in studying nonlinear time‐delay systems.     

基于自适应二阶终端滑模的飞行器再入姿态控制

针对飞行器再入过程中存在着模型不确定性因素以及气动环境复杂等鲁棒控制问题,提出一种基于自适应二阶非奇异终端滑模的控制方案.设计的控制器保证姿态跟踪误差在有限的时间内收敛于零,不需要内外扰的先验知识,通过在线自适应辨识扰动上界以消除其影响.最后以气动参数摄动50%作为扰动条件进行了飞行器再入姿态控制仿真,结果表明了该方案的快速性和鲁棒性.     

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.     

Finite-time attitude tracking control for a rigid spacecraft using time-varying terminal sliding mode techniques

This paper investigates the finite-time attitude tracking control for a rigid spacecraft in the presence of inertia uncertainties and external disturbances. Two novel time-varying terminal sliding mode control algorithms are derived for attitude tracking control system. The proposed two control algorithms not only eliminate the reaching phase of the conventional sliding mode control but also guarantee the tracking errors converge to zero in finite time. Moreover, the singularity problem can be avoided. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design methods.     

基于动态滑模控制的挠性航天器姿态控制

本文采用滑动模态控制方法对挠性航天器设计了姿态镇定控制律.首先,建立了挠性航天器的数学模型.其中,挠性航天器的运动学方程采用姿态四元数描述.然后,通过引入动态切换函数,设计挠性航天器的动态滑模姿态控制律.该控制律能对滑模姿态控制律中由符号函数项引起的抖振进行抑制.采用Lyapunov方法证明了所设计的动态滑模姿态控制律能使闭环航天器姿态系统稳定.最后,通过数值仿真例子验证了所提出方法的有效性.