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.     

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.     

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 disturbance observer‐based finite‐time continuous fault‐tolerant control for reentry RLV

The control effectors of reusable launch vehicle (RLV) can produce significant perturbations and faults in reentry phase. Such a challenge imposes tight requirements to enhance the robustness of vehicle autopilot. Focusing on this problem, a novel finite‐time fault‐tolerant control strategy is proposed for reentry RLV in this paper. The key of this strategy is to design an adaptive‐gain multivariable finite‐time disturbance observer (FDO) to estimate the synthetical perturbation with unknown bounds, which is composed of model uncertainty, external disturbance, and actuator fault considered as the partial loss of actuator effectiveness in this work. Then, combined with the finite‐time high‐order observer and differentiator, a continuous homogeneous second‐order sliding mode controller based on the terminal sliding mode and super‐twisting algorithm is designed to achieve a fast and accurate RLV attitude tracking with chattering attenuation. The main features of the integrated control strategy are that the adaptation algorithm of FDO can achieve non‐overestimating values of the observer gains and the second‐order super‐twisting sliding mode approach can obtain a more elegant solution in finite time. Finally, simulation results of classical RLV (X‐33) are provided to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed fault‐tolerant controller in tracking the guidance commands. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

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.     

Continuous robust fault‐tolerant control and vibration suppression for flexible spacecraft without angular velocity

The fault‐tolerant control and vibration suppression for flexible spacecraft without angular velocity measurement are investigated. External disturbances, actuator faults, unknown angular velocity, and flexible vibration are addressed simultaneously. Firstly, a model‐free adaptive supertwisting state observer and an angular velocity calculation algorithm in one step are developed by using attitude information only, which can estimate the angular velocity in finite time. Then, on the basis of angular velocity estimation, a novel continuous multivariable integral sliding mode (CMISM) is proposed for the first time, which is a combination of continuous nominal controller and a modified multivariable twisting controller to reject disturbances and faults. The CMISM can stabilize attitudes in finite time and attenuate chattering effectively. Furthermore, the input shaping technique is developed to achieve effective vibration suppression of the flexible appendages. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed method is illustrated by numerical simulations.     

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.     

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 control of robotic manipulators with position output feedback

This paper deals with the robust finite time tracking of desired trajectories for a wide group of robotic manipulators in spite of unknown disturbances, uncertainties, and saturations of actuators while only manipulator's positions are available and its velocities are not measurable physically. A new form of chattering‐free second order fast nonsingular terminal sliding mode control scheme is introduced to design input torques for fulfilling the determined tracking objective in the adjustable total finite settling time. The proposed control algorithm is incorporated with two nonlinear observers to estimate disturbances and velocities of joints within finite settling times. The global finite time stability of the closed‐loop manipulator is analytically proved. Finally, a numerical simulation is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the designed input torques. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Third‐order sliding mode fault‐tolerant control for satellites based on iterative learning observer

The attitude fault‐tolerant control problem for a satellite with reaction‐wheel failures, uncertainties, and unknown external disturbances is investigated in this paper. Firstly, an iterative learning observer (ILO) is proposed to achieve fault detection, isolation, and estimation. Secondly, based on the ILO, a third‐order sliding mode controller is proposed to stabilize the satellite attitude rapidly under unknown external disturbances and reaction‐wheel faults. Thirdly, the asymptotically stability of the ILO and the third‐order sliding mode controller is proved by using the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed control scheme is more effective and feasible by comparing with other fault‐tolerant control approach.     

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 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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Integral sliding mode fault‐tolerant control allocation for a class of affine nonlinear system

This paper develops novel fault‐tolerant integral sliding mode control allocation schemes for a class of an overactuated affine nonlinear system. The proposed schemes rely on an existing baseline controller, and the objective is to retain the nominal (fault‐free) closed‐loop performance in the face of actuator faults/failures by effectively utilizing actuator redundancy. The online control allocation reroutes the control effort to healthy actuators using the knowledge of actuator effectiveness level estimates. One of the proposed schemes is tested in simulation using a well‐known high‐fidelity model of a large civil transport aircraft (B747) from the literature. Good simulation results show the efficacy of the scheme.     

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.     

Observer‐based fault‐tolerant control for a class of hybrid impulsive systems

This paper investigates the fault‐tolerant control (FTC) problem for a class of hybrid nonlinear impulsive systems. Two kinds of faults are considered: continuous faults that affect each mode and discrete faults that affect the impulsive switching. The FTC strategy is based on the trade‐off between the frequency of switching and the decreasing rate of Lyapunov functions along the solution of the system, which maintains the stability of overall hybrid impulsive systems in spite of these two kinds of faults. A switched reluctance motor example is taken to illustrate the applicability of the proposed method. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.