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Accurate sensing and control are important for high-performance formation control of spacecraft systems. This paper presents a strategy of disturbance estimation and distributed predefined-time control for the formation of multi-spacecraft systems with uncertainties based on a disturbance observer. The process begins by formulating a kinematics model for the relative motion of spacecraft, with the formation's communication topology represented by a directed graph for the formation system of the spacecraft. A disturbance observer is then developed to estimate the disturbances, and the estimation errors can be convergent in fixed time. Following this, a disturbance-estimation-based sliding mode control is proposed to guarantee the predefined-time convergence of the multi-spacecraft formation system, regardless of initial conditions. It allows each spacecraft to reach its desired position within a set time frame. The results of the analysis of the multi-spacecraft formation system are also provided. Finally, an example simulation of a five-spacecraft formation flying system is provided to demonstrate the presented formation control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of satellites in orbit increases, the issue of flight safety in spacecraft formation orbit control has become increasingly prominent. With this in mind, this paper designs a second-order terminal sliding mode controller for spacecraft formation obstacle avoidance based on an artificial potential function (APF). To demonstrate the effectiveness of the controller, this paper first constructs a Lyapunov function to prove its stability and then verifies its theoretical validity through numerical simulation. Finally, a satellite simulator is used for semi-physical simulation to verify the practical effectiveness of the controller proposed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to meet the position and attitude requirements of spacecrafts and test masses for gravitational-wave detection missions, the attitude-orbit coordination control of multiple spacecrafts and test masses is studied. A distributed coordination control law for spacecraft formation based on dual quaternion is proposed. By describing the relationship between spacecrafts and test masses in the desired states, the coordination control problem is converted into a consistent-tracking control problem in which each spacecraft or test mass tracks its desired states. An accurate attitude-orbit relative dynamics model of the spacecraft and the test masses is proposed based on dual quaternions. A cooperative feedback control law based on a consistency algorithm is designed to achieve the consistent attitude tracking of multiple rigid bodies (spacecraft and test mass) and maintain the specific formation configuration. Moreover, the communication delays of the system are taken into account. The distributed coordination control law ensures almost global asymptotic convergence of the relative position and attitude error in the presence of communication delays. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method, which meets the formation-configuration requirements for gravitational-wave detection missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the attitude-orbit coupled control problem for multi-spacecraft formation with limited communication capability and actuator failure is investigated. For the purpose of solving this problem, an event-triggered attitude-orbit coupled fault-tolerant control strategy is proposed. First, an integrated nonlinear dynamic model including the coupling characteristics of the attitude and orbit is established based on the Kane equation. Second, the nonlinear dynamic model is linearized at the reference state to facilitate the controller design. Third, a dynamic event-triggered mechanism is designed and an event-triggered fault-tolerant control law is developed. The stability of closed-loop control systems can be ensured under the designed control law and a sufficient condition that Zeno's behavior can be avoided is presented. Finally, simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A switching neural network control scheme, consisting of the adaptive neural network controller and sliding mode controller, is proposed for underactuated formation reconfiguration in elliptic orbits with the loss of either the radial or in-track thrust. By using the inherent coupling of system states, the switching neural network technique is then adopted to estimate the unmatched disturbances and design the underactuated controller to achieve underactuated formation reconfiguration with high precision. The adaptive neural network controller works in the active region, and the disturbances composed of linearization errors and external perturbations are approximated by radial basis function neural networks. The adaptive sliding mode controller works outside the active region, and the upper bound of the approximation errors is estimated by the adaptation law. The stability of the closed-loop control system is proved via the Lyapunov-based approach. The numerical simulation results have demonstrated the rapid, high-precision and robust performance of the proposed controller compared with the linear sliding mode controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the issues of iterative learning algorithm-based robust thruster fault reconstruction and reconfigurable fault-tolerant control for spacecraft formation flying systems subject to space perturbations. Motivated by sliding mode methodology, a novel iterative learning observer (ILO) was developed to robustly reconstruct the thruster faults. Based on the fault signals obtained from the ILO, a learning output–feedback fault-tolerant control (LOF2TC) approach was explored such that the closed-loop spacecraft formation configuration was accurately maintained in the presence of space perturbations and thruster faults. Numerical simulations were employed to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed ILO-based fault-reconstructing approach and LOF2TC-based configuration maintenance approach for spacecraft formation flying systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]