Distributed spacecraft attitude tracking and synchronization under directed graphs

Distributed adaptive controllers are developed for attitude tracking and synchronization on SO (3) of multiple flexible spacecraft under a directed graph. Since not all spacecraft can receive the virtual leader's information, a finite-time observer is designed for each follower spacecraft to estimate the moving virtual leader's information. An adaptive controller is then proposed to realize the distributed attitude tracking synchronously and achieve the bounded flexible vibration. A rigorous theoretical proof is presented based on the separation principle. Furthermore, an adaptive controller with a modal variable observer is designed for the case without the measurements of the modal variables. Finally, numerical and experimental verifications are presented. (c) 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The paper introduces distributed adaptive controllers for multiple flexible spacecraft to achieve attitude tracking and synchronization. It shows that the designed controllers can effectively estimate the information of the virtual leader and achieve synchronous tracking.