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.     

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.     

多航天器系统分布式固定时间输出反馈姿态协同跟踪控制

针对角速度信息不可测条件下的多航天器系统姿态协同跟踪控制问题,提出一种基于积分滑模的分布式固定时间姿态协同跟踪控制方法.基于bi-limit齐次性理论设计一种新型的固定时间收敛的积分滑模面.为估计出不可测的航天器信息,提出一种固定时间观测器,同时为减少航天器间的通信信息流,引入滑模估计器估计领航者的姿态信息.结合固定时...     

Fully distributed event-triggered asymptotic attitude coordination of multiple spacecraft systems with disturbances

This article studies the leader-following attitude coordination problem of a group of rigid spacecraft subject to communication constraint, disturbances and uncertain control coefficient matrices. A fully distributed adaptive anti-disturbance attitude coordinated control scheme with event-triggering mechanism is developed. First, the event-triggered adaptive distributed observer is designed for each follower to estimate the leader's information without continuous communication requirement. Based on the estimated information, the adaptive anti-disturbance attitude tracking controller is designed such that asymptotic coordinated tracking can be achieved under additive disturbances and actuators' partial loss of efficiency. The proposed control scheme ensures that all the closed-loop signals are bounded and the positive lower bound of inter-event times exists in each subsystem. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed control scheme.     

Distributed attitude synchronization control for multiple flexible spacecraft without modal variable measurement

This paper solves the attitude synchronization and tracking problem for a group of flexible spacecraft without flexible‐mode variable measurement. The spacecraft formation is studied in a leader‐following synchronization scheme with a dynamic virtual leader. With the application of adaptive sliding‐mode control technique, a distributed modified Rodriguez parameters‐based dynamic controller is proposed for flexible spacecraft without requiring modal variable measurement. It is proved that the attitude synchronization and tracking can be achieved asymptotically under the control strategy through the Lyapunov's stability analysis. Furthermore, a distributed robust continuous control algorithm is designed to guarantee the ultimate boundedness of both the attitude tracking error and the modal variable observation error when bounded external disturbances exist. Some numerical simulation examples for multiple flexible spacecraft formation are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

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.     

Adaptive fixed‐time fault‐tolerant control for rigid spacecraft using a double power reaching law

In this paper, an adaptive fixed‐time fault‐tolerant control scheme is presented for rigid spacecraft with inertia uncertainties and external disturbances. By using an inverse trigonometric function, a novel double power reaching law is constructed to speed up the state stabilization and reduce the chattering phenomenon simultaneously. Then, an adaptive fixed‐time fault‐tolerant controller is developed for the spacecraft with the actuator faults, such that the fixed‐time convergence of the attitude and angular velocity could be guaranteed, and no prior knowledge on the upper bound of the lumped uncertainties is required anymore in the controller design. Comparative simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and superior performance of the proposed scheme.     

Global finite-time attitude consensus tracking control for a group of rigid spacecraft

The problem of finite-time attitude consensus for multiple rigid spacecraft with a leader–follower architecture is investigated in this paper. To achieve the finite-time attitude consensus, at the first step, a distributed finite-time convergent observer is proposed for each follower to estimate the leader's attitude in a finite time. Then based on the terminal sliding mode control method, a new finite-time attitude tracking controller is designed such that the leader's attitude can be tracked in a finite time. Finally, a finite-time observer-based distributed control strategy is proposed. It is shown that the attitude consensus can be achieved in a finite time under the proposed controller. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

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.     

Adaptive Fault‐Tolerant Attitude Tracking Control of Rigid Spacecraft on Lie Group with Fixed‐Time Convergence

This paper investigates the fixed‐time attitude tracking problem for rigid spacecraft in the presence of inertial uncertainties, external disturbances, actuator faults, and input saturation constraints. The logarithm map is first utilized to transform the tracking problem on SO(3) into the stabilization one on its associated Lie algebra ( ). A novel nonsingular fixed‐time‐based sliding mode is designed, which not only avoids the singularity but also guarantees that the convergence time of tracking errors along the sliding surface is independent of the state value. Then, an adaptive fault‐tolerant control law is constructed, in which an online adaptive law is incorporated to estimate the upper boundary of the lumped uncertainties. The combined control scheme enforces the system state to reach a neighborhood of the sliding surface in the sense of the fixed‐time concept. The key feature of the resulting control scheme is that it can accommodate actuator failures under limited control torque without the knowledge of fault information. Numerical simulations are finally performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fixed‐time controllers.     

Leader‐following attitude consensus of multiple uncertain spacecraft systems subject to external disturbance

The attitude consensus problem of multiple rigid spacecraft systems is one of the key issues in spacecraft formation flying and has been extensively studied. In this paper, we further consider the leader‐following attitude consensus problem of multiple rigid uncertain spacecraft systems subject to a class of multi‐tone sinusoidal disturbances with arbitrarily unknown amplitudes, initial phases, frequencies, and constant biases. In contrast to the existing results, in order to achieve asymptotic reference tracking and disturbance rejection by smooth control, we have integrated the distributed observer approach with internal model and adaptive control techniques. Simulation results are shown to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control law. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decentralized sliding‐mode control for attitude synchronization in spacecraft formation

This paper addresses attitude synchronization and tracking problems in spacecraft formation in the presence of model uncertainties and external disturbances. A decentralized adaptive sliding mode control law is proposed using undirected interspacecraft communication topology and analyzed based on algebraic graph theory. A multispacecraft sliding manifold is derived, on which each spacecraft approaches desired time‐varying attitude and angular velocity while maintaining attitude synchronization with the other spacecraft in the formation. A control law is then developed to ensure convergence to the sliding manifold. The stability of the resulting closed‐loop system is proved by application of Barbalat's Lemma. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed attitude synchronization and tracking methodology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fixed‐time output‐feedback consensus tracking control for second‐order multiagent systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of fixed‐time consensus tracking control for a class of second‐order multiagent systems under an undirected communication graph. A distributed output‐feedback fixed‐time consensus tracking control scheme is proposed to make the states of all individual agents simultaneously track a time‐varying reference state even when the reference state is available only to a subset of the group members and only output measurements are available for feedback. Homogeneous Lyapunov function and homogeneity property are employed to show that the control scheme can guarantee the consensus tracking errors converging 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.     

Sliding-Mode-Based Attitude Tracking Control of Spacecraft Under Reaction Wheel Uncertainties

The attitude tracking operations of an on-orbit spacecraft with degraded performance exhibited by potential actuator uncertainties (including failures and misalignments) can be extraordinarily challenging. Thus, the control law development for the attitude tracking task of spacecraft subject to actuator (namely reaction wheel) uncertainties is addressed in this paper. More specially, the attitude dynamics model of the spacecraft is firstly established under actuator failures and misalignment (without a small angle approximation operation). Then, a new non-singular sliding manifold with fixed time convergence and anti-unwinding properties is proposed, and an adaptive sliding mode control (SMC) strategy is introduced to handle actuator uncertainties, model uncertainties and external disturbances simultaneously. Among this, an explicit misalignment angles range that could be treated herein is offered. Lyapunov-based stability analyses are employed to verify that the reaching phase of the sliding manifold is completed in finite time, and the attitude tracking errors are ensured to converge to a small region of the closest equilibrium point in fixed time once the sliding manifold enters the reaching phase. Finally, the beneficial features of the designed controller are manifested via detailed numerical simulation tests.      

Finite‐Time Sliding Mode Trajectory Tracking Control of Uncertain Mechanical Systems

The problem of finite‐time tracking control is studied for uncertain nonlinear mechanical systems. To achieve finite‐time convergence of tracking errors, a simple linear sliding surface based on polynomial reference trajectory is proposed to enable the trajectory tracking errors to converge to zero in a finite time, which is assigned arbitrarily in advance. The sliding mode control technique is employed in the development of the finite‐time controller to guarantee the excellent robustness of the closed‐loop system. The proposed sliding mode scheme eliminates the reaching phase problem, so that the closed‐loop system always holds the invariance property to parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. Lyapunov stability analysis is performed to show the global finite‐time convergence of the tracking errors. A numerical example of a rigid spacecraft attitude tracking problem demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed controller.     

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.     

Nonsingular terminal sliding mode based finite-time control for spacecraft attitude tracking

This paper studies finite-time attitude tracking control problem of a rigid spacecraft system with external disturbances and inertia uncertainties. Firstly, a new finite-time attitude tracking control law is designed using nonsingular terminal sliding mode concepts. In the absence and presence of external disturbances and inertia uncertainties, this controller can drive the attitude and angular velocity tracking errors to reach zero in finite time. Secondly, a finite-time disturbance observer is introduced to estimate the disturbance, and a composite controller is developed which consists of a feedback control based on nonsingular terminal sliding mode method and compensation term based on finite-time disturbance observer. Finite-time convergence of attitude tracking errors and the stability of the closed-loop system is ensured by the Lyapunov approach. Numerical simulations on attitude control of spacecraft are also given to demonstrate the performance of the proposed controllers.     

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.     

Fault‐tolerant spacecraft attitude control under actuator saturation and without angular velocity

In this paper, a fault‐tolerant control scheme is proposed to control the attitude of a rigid spacecraft subject to external disturbances and multiple system uncertainties, as well as actuator faults and saturation. More challengingly, it is assumed that the angular velocity is unavailable. A super‐twisting observer with time‐varying gain is firstly designed to accurately estimate the angular velocity in finite time. The choice of the time‐varying gain is dependent on a state‐norm estimate. Then, using the information from the observer (estimate of angular velocity), a fault‐tolerant controller is proposed, where an adaptive law is introduced to address the unknown loss of effectiveness and neural networks are used to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions. It is proved that the attitude orientations converge to the desired values at a fixed time. Finally, a simulation example is utilized to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.     

追踪器本体坐标系下航天器姿轨一体化控制律设计

在追踪航天器本体坐标系下, 联合相对轨道动力学模型和四元素姿态动力学模型, 引入推进器配置矩阵, 建立六自由度姿态和轨道一体化模型. 该模型避免了控制输入向追踪器本体坐标系下的转换. 在此基础上, 采用输入-状态(ISS) 稳定性原理, 在干扰输入信息完全未知的情况下, 设计了非线性鲁棒一体化控制律. 该控制律实现了对椭圆轨道上目标航天器的扰动抑制和跟踪, 具有较好的鲁棒性和跟踪性. 最后, 针对运行在椭圆轨道上的目标给出仿真结果, 表明了所提出的一体化控制律的可行性和有效性.