Fixed-time sliding mode attitude control of a flexible spacecraft with rotating appendages connected by magnetic bearing

<abstract> <p>This study focuses on the attitude control of a flexible spacecraft comprising rotating appendages, magnetic bearings, and a satellite platform capable of carrying flexible solar panels. The kinematic and dynamic models of the spacecraft were established using Lagrange methods to describe the translation and rotation of the spacecraft system and its connected components. A simplified model of the dynamics of a five-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) active magnetic bearing was developed using the equivalent stiffness and damping methods based on the magnetic gap variations in the magnetic bearing. Next, a fixed-time sliding mode control method was proposed for each component of the spacecraft to adjust the magnetic gap of the active magnetic bearing, realize a stable rotation of the flexible solar panels, obtain a high inertia for the appendage of the spacecraft, and accurately control the attitude. Finally, the numerical simulation results of the proposed fixed-time control method were compared with those of the proportional-derivative control method to demonstrate the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed control law.</p> </abstract>

Finite-time disturbance observer based-control of flexible spacecraft

This paper aims to design an attitude controller for a flexible spacecraft under external disturbance and uncertainty. The spacecraft’s attitude is controlled by a super twisting controller based on a disturbance observer. This paper’s spacecraft system is non-minimum phase since mode-shapes are included in the output; thus, the following four methods are designed to compensate for the constraint: (1) The output redefinition method, where outputs are redefined as a combination of mode-shapes and quaternions. (2) The flexible spacecraft is controlled without measuring the mode-shapes, and only the quaternion parameters are selected as the output. (3) An advanced sliding surface is proposed, in which the mode-shapes are considered in the sliding surface. (4) The difference between flexible and rigid spacecraft dynamics is considered as disturbance, and its effect on the system is compensated. The finite-time stability of the closed-loop system is proved by leveraging the Lyapunov theory. The numerical simulation illustrates the closed-loop system’s effectiveness in terms of robustness compared to the existing controller and the four mentioned methods.