In this article, the optimal attitude consensus control problem of distributed spacecraft formation through local information exchange is solved in presence parameter uncertainty and disturbance. The dynamics model rigid established based on unit quaternion under an undirected graph. Then, scheme Lyapunov functions adopted for formation. approach to construct appropriate function multiple devel...

Active magnetic control is studied as a means to improve the capabilities and perfonnance of gravity gradient stabilized spacecraft. Active magnetic control eliminates the need for a passive damper and can reduce significantly the costs and complexity of other functional parts of the spacecraft. The system under study includes three magnetic torquers, one three-axis magnetometer, and a control ...

This paper investigates two chattering-free finite-time controllers for the rigid spacecraft attitude tracking control problem considering modeling uncertainty and external disturbance. First, the basic controller is designed utilizing integral terminal sliding mode surface (ITSMS) with prior knowledge of the total system uncertainty consisting of modeling uncertainty and external disturbance. ...

Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPTs) are finding renewed user appeal due to the growth in small satellite applications. PPTs are especially well suited to small satellite applications because they are simple, low-mass, and high Isp propulsion systems. The solid Teflon fuel allows for a self-contained, inert and stable propellant system. With a power draw of only 0.1 to 150 W and a very small (50 800 ...

National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) aims to capture a Near Earth Orbit (NEO) asteroid or a piece of a large asteroid and transport it to the Earth–Moon system. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of one of the main control challenges for the first ARM mission concept, namely despinning and three-axis stabilizing the asteroid and spacecraft c...

This paper considers the problem of achieving attitude consensus in spacecraft formations with bounded, time-varying communication delays between spacecraft connected as specified by a strongly connected topology. A state feedback controller is proposed and investigated using a time domain approach (via LMIs) and a frequency domain approach (via the small-gain theorem) to obtain delay dependent...

In this paper, we treat the practical problem of tracking the attitude and angular velocity of a spacecraft in the presence of gravity and disturbance moments. Autonomous trajectory tracking is a practical problem for robotic spacecraft, as well as autonomous aerial and ground vehicles. The approach used here achieves near global stable trajectory tracking by using a globally defined dynamics m...

An adaptive control technique can be applicable to reorient spacecraft with uncertain properties such as mass, inertial and various misalignments. A nonlinear quaternion feedback controller is chosen as a baseline attitude controller. A linearly added adaptive input supported by neural networks to the baseline controller can estimate and eliminate the uncertain spacecraft property adaptively. T...