Reset and prescribed performance approach to spacecraft attitude regulation

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the attitude regulation for spacecraft in the presence of time-varying inertia uncertainty and exogenous disturbances. Design/methodology/approach The high gain approaches are typically used in existing researches for theoretical advantages, bringing better performance but sensitive to parameter selection, making the controller conservative. A reset-control policy is presented to achieve the spacecraft attitude control with easy control parameter tuning. Findings The reset-control policy guarantees satisfying control performance despite using performance tuning function and saturation function besides reducing the conservativeness of the controller, thus reducing the effort in tuning control parameters. Originality/value Notably, the adaptive function owns a reset mechanism, which is reset to a preset condition when the controlled variable crosses zero. The mathematical analysis also shows the system trajectory can converge to a set centered at the origin.