Minimum sliding mode error feedback control for fault tolerant small satellite attitude control

This paper proposes a new control strategy (which we call “minimum sliding mode error feedback control, MSMEFC”) for small satellite attitude control. As we know, the attitude control algorithm plays a significant role in the whole performance of the satellite, especially under the existence of uncertain disturbances from the space. Without loss of generality, the MSMEFC is presented based on the sliding mode theory. It is assumed that the equivalent control error is defined to offset the uncertain disturbances to improve the control performance. Hence, in order to estimate the optimal equivalent control error, a cost function is derived on the basis of the principle of minimum sliding mode error. Then, the equivalent control error wills feedback to the conventional sliding mode control to obtain the final MSMEFC. According to the theoretical analyzes, the sliding mode after the MSMEFC will approximate to the ideal sliding mode, resulting in enhancing the control performance. Moreover, an adaptive non-singular terminal sliding mode is employed to compare with the performance of MSMEFC. Several simulations are performed to verify the effectiveness of proposed MSMEFC in the presence of serious perturbations, even in some fault-tolerant scenarios.     

Fault tolerant small satellite attitude control using adaptive non-singular terminal sliding mode

The Attitude Control System (ACS) plays a pivotal role in the whole performance of the spacecraft on the orbit; therefore, it is vitally important to design the control system with the performance of rapid response, high control precision and insensitive to external perturbations. In the first place, this paper proposes two adaptive nonlinear control algorithms based on the sliding mode control (SMC), which are designed for small satellite attitude control system. The nonlinear dynamics describing the attitude of small satellite is considered in a circle reference orbit, and the stability of the closed-loop system in the presence of external perturbations is investigated. Then, in order to account for accidental or degradation fault in satellite actuators, the fault-tolerant control schemes are presented. Hence, two adaptive fault-tolerant control laws (continuous sliding mode control and non-singular terminal sliding mode control) are developed by adopting the nonlinear analytical model to describe the system, which can guarantee global asymptotic convergence of the attitude control error with the existence of unknown external perturbations. The nonlinear hyperplane based Terminal sliding mode is introduced into the control law design; therefore, the system convergence performance improves and the control error is convergent in “finite time”. As a result, the study on the non-singular terminal sliding mode control is the emphasis and the continuous sliding mode control is used to compare with the non-singular terminal sliding mode control. Meanwhile, an adaptive fuzzy algorithm has been proposed to suppress the chattering phenomenon. Moreover, several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed controllers by correcting for the external perturbations. Simulation results confirm that the suggested methodologies yield high control precision in control. In addition, actuator degradation, actuator stuck and actuator failure for a period of time are simulated to demonstrate the fault recovery capability of the fault tolerant controllers. The numerical results clearly demonstrate the good performance of the adaptive non-singular terminal control in the event of actuator fault compare with the continuous sliding mode control.     

Performance analysis of an attitude control system for solar sails using sliding masses

This paper deals with the attitude control performance analysis of a square solar sail. Two sliding masses are moved inside and along mast lanyards for the control around the pitch and yaw axes. An optimal linear controller with a feedback and a feedforward part is used to control the attitude of the sail. Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the system’s ability of performing precise and near-time-optimal reorientation maneuvers as well as the controller’s sensitivity with respect to the sail parameters, as the center of pressure to the center of mass offset or the sail’s size. Our simulation results are finally shown and discussed.     

High performance two degrees of freedom attitude control for solar sails

The purpose of this paper is to present a high performance solar sail attitude controller which uses ballast masses moving inside the sail’s booms as actuators and to demonstrate its ability of performing time efficient reorientation maneuvers. The proposed controller consists of a combination of a feedforward and a feedback controller, which takes advantage of the feedforward’s fast response and the feedback’s ability of responding to unpredicted disturbances. The feedforward controller considers the attitude dynamics of the sailcraft as well as the disturbance torque due to the center of pressure offset to the center of mass of the sailcraft. Additional disturbance torques, like those coming from the environment or from asymmetry of the spacecraft structure, are then handled by the feedback controller. Simulation performance results are finally compared against results available in the literature.     

Backstepping sliding-mode control of stratospheric airships using disturbance-observer

In the presence of unknown disturbances and model parameter uncertainties, this paper develop a nonlinear backstepping sliding-mode controller (BSMC) for trajectory tracking control of a stratospheric airship using a disturbance-observer (DO). Compared with the conventional sliding mode surface (SMS) constructed by a linear combination of the errors, the new SMS manifold is selected as the last back-step error to improve independence of the adjustment of the controller gains. Furthermore, a nonlinear disturbance-observer is designed to process unknown disturbance inputs and improve the BSMC performances. The closed-loop system of trajectory tracking control plant is proved to be globally asymptotically stable by using Lyapunov theory. By comparing with traditional backstepping control and SMC design, the results obtained demonstrate the capacity of the airship to execute a realistic trajectory tracking mission, even in the presence of unknown disturbances, and aerodynamic coefficient uncertainties.     

Event-triggered attitude control of spacecraft

The problem of spacecraft attitude stabilization control system with limited communication and external disturbances is investigated based on an event-triggered control scheme. In the proposed scheme, information of attitude and control torque only need to be transmitted at some discrete triggered times when a defined measurement error exceeds a state-dependent threshold. The proposed control scheme not only guarantees that spacecraft attitude control errors converge toward a small invariant set containing the origin, but also ensures that there is no accumulation of triggering instants. The performance of the proposed control scheme is demonstrated through numerical simulation.     

Event-triggered adaptive fuzzy attitude takeover control of spacecraft

The problem of attitude takeover control of spacecraft by using cellular satellites with limited communication, actuator faults and input saturation is investigated. In order to lighten the communication burden of cellular satellites, an event-triggered control strategy is adopted. The filtered attitude information needs to be transmitted only when the defined measurement error reaches the event-triggered threshold in this strategy. Then, to deal with the unknown inertia matrix, actuator faults, external disturbances and the errors caused by event-triggered scheme, fuzzy logic systems is introduced to estimate the uncertainties directly. Combining fuzzy logic control strategy and the event-triggered method, the first event-triggered adaptive fuzzy control law is developed. Then, torque saturation of cellular satellites is further considered in the second control law, where the upper bound of the uncertainties is estimated by fuzzy logic systems. The resulting closed-loop systems under the two control laws are guaranteed to be bounded. Finally, the effectiveness of two proposed control laws is verified by the numerical simulations.     

Adaptive predefined-time control for liquid-filled flexible spacecraft attitude stabilization during orbit maneuver

A predefined-time attitude stabilization for complex structure spacecraft with liquid sloshing and flexible vibration is investigated under input saturation during orbital maneuver. First, the attitude dynamics model of liquid-filled flexible spacecraft is constructed. Meanwhile, the influence of solar panel vibration and liquid sloshing is treated as a disturbance in the controller design. Next, an adaptive predefined-time control scheme is proposed by applying sliding mode control theory. A predefined-time convergent sliding surface and reaching law are designed to ensure the predefined-time fast convergence rate. Furthermore, a novel adaptive algorithm is developed to handle the disturbances from liquid sloshing and flexible vibration, ensuring that the system converges to a small neighborhood of the equilibrium. Additionally, a new auxiliary system is constructed to deal with the effects of input saturation. At last, one simulation case is performed to verify the feasibility and advantages of the proposed algorithm.     

变重量/重心飞机建模及姿态控制律设计

为解决飞机在重量、重心变化下的姿态控制问题,从相互作用力的角度将重量、重心的变化转化为干扰力和干扰力矩,提出并建立了变重量/重心飞机的一般动力学模型和重量、重心特性模型.该模型可以反映重量、重心动态变化与飞机运动的耦合,解决了现有模型无法处理飞机重心动态变化的问题.在姿态控制律设计上,提出了针对飞机重量、重心变化的干扰观测补偿控制器结构,将重量、重心变化转化为干扰输入,采用比例积分观测器对重量、重心变化引起的干扰力和力矩进行观测,并将观测值解算为补偿信号引入自动驾驶仪,设计了纵向姿态的干扰补偿控制器.以运输机重型货物空投为背景的计算机仿真结果表明:该模型可以准确反映飞机在重心变化各个阶段的动力学特性;在观测器的补偿指令作用下,俯仰角对重量、重心变化的响应波动远小于未加补偿的情形,满足精确姿态控制的需要.      

Constrained adaptive fault-tolerant attitude tracking control of rigid spacecraft

A saturated fault-tolerant attitude tracking controller for disturbed rigid spacecraft is derived using nonlinear state feedback control method. The proposed controller achieves the constraints of control inputs by directly using the bounded function instead of the traditional saturation compensator technique, and the active tolerance to the partial loss of actuator effectiveness is also achieved by directly using the known bounds of the actuator faults in the controller. Specifically, compared with the traditional saturated control methods, a continuously bounded nonlinear function in the proposed controller is used to guarantee that the actuator outputs are smoothly bounded under the prescribed constraints. Based on some properties of the attitude tracking dynamics, the proposed controller can ensure the attitude tracking errors converge to small neighborhoods of zero via stability analysis in the Lyapunov framework. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the control scheme.     

Landing of hopping rovers on Irregularly-shaped small bodies using attitude control

A hopping rover that is driven only by internal or external attitude actuators is an ideal mobility approach for surface exploration of small solar system bodies. Without thrust control and grasping mechanisms, a hopping rover is mechanically simple to design and less prone to mechanical failures, but faces challenges during soft landing. It may rebound from the surface, causing deviations from its original landing site. In this paper, landing of a hopping rover on the surface of an asteroid is investigated, and a strategy using only attitude control to shorten the landing distance is proposed. Based on rigid body impact dynamics, the edge impact configuration is investigated in detail. The factors that affect the impact states of a cube-shaped hopping rover are studied. Then, controlled edge landing is analyzed, in which the post-impact velocity of the hopping rover is changed by controlling its attitude prior to impact. Three guidance schemes are developed, followed by attitude profile generation and finite time stable attitude control. Finally, simulations are performed on an ideal flat surface and uneven terrain. The results show that controlled edge landing can effectively reduce the landing distance and settling time, compared with uncontrolled landing. This study on hopping motion on the surface of an irregular-shaped asteroid with attitude control, can provide a reference for hopper trajectory plan in future asteroid surface explorations.     

Compensation of time-variable magnetic moments for a precise attitude control in nano- and micro-satellite missions

Theses days, many nano- and micro-satellites are applied to several astronomy and remote sensing missions. In order to achieve mission requirements, these satellites must control the attitude precisely. A magnetic disturbance is one of the dominant sources of attitude disturbances. Therefore, this disturbance should be canceled in-orbit or on the ground to achieve the attitude strict requirements. This paper presents the effect of the magnetic disturbance to the attitude in nano- and micro-satellite missions and the sources of the residual magnetic moment of the satellites, which causes the magnetic disturbance. Then, the paper proposes a method to compensate the residual magnetic moment both in-orbit and in the design phase of the satellites. The research also focused on a time-varying residual magnetic moment. Finally, the method is applied to a micro-astrometry satellite as an example.     

ESO-based event-triggered attitude control of spacecraft with unknown actuator faults

An event-triggered control strategy based on extended state observer (ESO) is proposed for the attitude tracking problem of small plug-and-play spacecraft with uncertain inertia parameters, external disturbances, and actuator faults. A simplified controller is developed based on the angular velocity and the general disturbances estimated by the provided ESO using the information of the system inputs and the angular velocities. In the designed event-triggered sampling mechanism, a state-dependent event-triggered strategy determines the triggering instant of the controller to reduce the frequency of information transmission between the controller and the actuator. In comparison with the previous literature, this paper considers uncertain inertia parameters, external disturbances, and actuator faults as general disturbances estimated by ESO, especially for the actuator faults. The inputs of ESO are the error of the angular velocities, which can simplify the controller design. Moreover, the designed ESO can effectively attenuate the influence of measured noises generated by the gyroscopes. The proposed event-triggered policy balances the performance of event-triggering and the control stability performance, which reduces the final state convergence regions without increasing more triggering times compared to existing studies. Furthermore, the investigated policy achieves Zeno-free triggering. Numerical simulations verify theoretical results.     

并联式运载器的垂直发射建模与控制

为了有效控制垂直发射时并联式运载器的运动,设计了一个用于垂直发射的姿态控制方法,首先分析了欧拉运动学方程存在的奇异点,在此基础上给出了采用四元数描述的姿态运动学方程,建立了并联式运载器的姿态动力学模型,其次给出了并联式运载器的推力矢量模型,基于数学模型对推力矢量在不同配置方式下的控制效率进行了比较,最后给出了保证四元数收敛的切换函数,应用变结构控制理论设计了对于满足一定条件的不确定性具有完全鲁棒性的姿态控制律.仿真结果表明了该姿态控制方法的有效性.      

On the ability of sliding mode and LQR controllers optimized with PSO in attitude control of a flexible 4-DOF satellite with time-varying payload

Precise pointing of the satellite and its payload is essential in the accurate accomplishment of a space mission. In this study, the system of a satellite and its payload are considered as 4-DOF equations of motion. The time-varying payload can observe one direction of the Earth independently, and the satellite can point to the Earth station by its 3-DOF motions simultaneously. Sliding mode and LQR controllers are designed for damping disturbances, and consequently high pointing accuracy. Environmental disturbances and the associated time delay of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) are applied to the system. An algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is proposed to find the optimum values of variables and Normalized Integral Square Error (NISE) of the two aforementioned controllers. Numerical simulations indicate the optimized magnitudes of target detection errors and control efforts in four directions. The results revealed that PSO-SMC can finely track the time-varying payload and has better efficiency in comparison with PSO-LQR.     

Investigations of an integrated angular velocity measurement and attitude control system for spacecraft using magnetically suspended double-gimbal CMGs

This paper presents an integrated angular velocity measurement and attitude control system of spacecraft using magnetically suspended double-gimbal control moment gyros (MSDGCMGs). The high speed rotor of MSDGCMG is alleviated by a five-degree-of-freedom permanent magnet biased AMB control system. With this special rotor supported manner, the MSDGCMG has the function of attitude rate sensing as well as attitude control. This characteristic provides a new approach to a compact light-weight spacecraft design, which can combine these two functions into a single device. This paper discusses the principles and implementations of AMB-based angular velocity measurement. Spacecraft dynamics with DGMSCMG actuators, including the dynamics of magnetically suspended high-speed rotor, the dynamics of inner gimbal and outer gimbal, as well as the determination method of spacecraft angular velocity are modeled, respectively. The effectiveness of the proposed integrated system is also validated numerically and experimentally.     

On-orbit verification of fuel-free attitude control system for spinning solar sail utilizing solar radiation pressure

This paper introduces a new attitude control system for a solar sail, which leverages solar radiation pressure. This novel system achieves completely fuel-free and oscillation-free attitude control of a flexible spinning solar sail. This system consists of thin-film-type devices that electrically control their optical parameters such as reflectivity to generate an imbalance in the solar radiation pressure applied to the edge of the sail. By using these devices, minute and continuous control torque can be applied to the sail to realize very stable and fuel-free attitude control of the large and flexible membrane. The control system was implemented as an optional attitude control system for small solar power sail demonstrator named IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun). In-orbit attitude control experiments were conducted, and the performance of the controller was successfully verified in comparison with the ground-based analytical performance estimation.     

柔性卫星大角度机动的自适应模糊变结构控制

针对柔性卫星大角度机动过程中多种模态的强耦合非线性动力学控制问题,提出了一种自适应模糊变结构姿态控制方法.首先利用拉格朗日方程建立了带柔性附件卫星的动力学模型,然后设计变结构控制器使得系统状态能在有限时间内到达滑模面,并采用自适应模糊系统逼近系统所存在的耦合非线性项.为了削弱变结构控制项所带来的抖动,避免激发柔性附件的高频模态,采用边界层方法来代替开关项,并通过模糊规则表的方法确定边界层的厚度.仿真结果表明,所提出的控制方法既实现了柔性卫星高精度姿态控制,也保证了卫星大角度机动过程中柔性附件弹性模态的有效抑制,系统对各种干扰具有一定的鲁棒性.      

永磁同步电动机大惯量负载的滑模变结构控制

当负载的转动惯量较大时,直接驱动式永磁同步电动机(PMSM, Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor)系统在启动、停止或速度有变化的情况下,会产生很大的惯性转矩,从而对系统的控制性能产生影响.为了解决此类问题,采用了滑模变结构的控制方法.首先建立了PMSM的数学模型,同时考虑了摩擦对于系统的影响.在此基础上,设计了滑模变结构控制器,并运用Ansoft公司的Simplorer仿真系统对整个系统进行了仿真,对比例-积分(PI, Proportion-Integral)控制和滑模变结控制性能进行了比较.结果表明,滑模变结构控制方法能很好地适应大惯量负载控制系统.      

High precision dynamic model and control considering J2 perturbation for spacecraft hovering in low orbit

For spacecraft hovering in low orbit, a high precision spacecraft relative dynamics model without any simplification and considering J₂ perturbation is established in this paper. Using the derived model, open-loop control and closed-loop control are proposed respectively. Gauss's variation equations and the coordinate transformation method are combined to deal with the relative J₂ perturbation between the two spacecraft. The sliding mode controller is adopted as the closed-loop controller for spacecraft hovering. To improve the control accuracy, the relative J₂ perturbation is regarded as a known parameter term in the closed-loop controller. The external uncertainty perturbations except J₂ perturbation are estimated by numerical difference method, and the boundary layer method is used to weaken the impact of chattering on the sliding mode controller. The open-loop control of spacecraft hovering with the relative J₂ perturbation and without the relative J₂ perturbation are simulated and compared, and the results prove that the accuracy of open-loop control with relative J₂ perturbation has been significantly improved. Similarly, the simulation of the closed-loop control are presented to validate the effectiveness of the designed sliding mode controller, and the results demonstrate that the designed sliding mode controller including the derived relative J₂ perturbation can guarantee the high accuracy and robustness of spacecraft hovering in long-term mission.