Adaptive Sliding Mode Attitude-Tracking Control of Spacecraft with Prescribed Time Performance

In this article, a novel finite-time attitude-tracking control scheme is proposed by using the prescribed performance control (PPC) method for the spacecraft system under the external disturbance and an uncertain inertia matrix. First, a novel polynomial finite-time performance function (FTPF) was used to avoid the complex calculation of exponential function from conventional FTPF. Then, a simpler error transformation was introduced to guarantee that the attitude-tracking error converges to a preselected region in prescribed time. Subsequently, a robust adaptive controller was proposed by using the backstepping method and the sliding mode control (SMC) technique. Unlike the existing attitude-tracking control results, the proposed PPC scheme guarantees the performance of spacecraft system under the static and transient conditions. Meanwhile, the state trajectory of system can be completely drawn into the designed sliding surface. The stability of the control scheme is proven rigorously by the Lyapunov's theory of stability. Finally, the simulations show that the convergence rate and the convergence accuracy are better for the tracking errors of spacecraft system under the proposed control scheme.

Automated summary

This article proposes a novel finite-time attitude-tracking control scheme for spacecraft systems. The scheme uses the prescribed performance control method to handle external disturbance and uncertain inertia matrix. By using a novel polynomial finite-time performance function and a simpler error transformation, the scheme ensures that the attitude-tracking error converges to a preselected region within a prescribed time. A robust adaptive controller is then proposed using the backstepping method and sliding mode control technique. The proposed control scheme guarantees spacecraft system performance under static and transient conditions and achieves complete state trajectory drawing into the designed sliding surface.