Attitude control with active actuator saturation prevention

Abstract

Spacecraft attitude control in the presence of actuator saturation is considered. The attitude controller developed has two components: a proportional component and an angular velocity component. The proportional control has a special form that depends on the attitude parameterization. The angular velocity control is realized by a strictly positive real system with its own input nonlinearity. The strictly positive real system can filter noise in the angular velocity measurement. With this control architecture the torques applied to the body are guaranteed to be below a predetermined value, thus preventing saturation of the actuators. The closed-loop equilibrium point corresponding to the desired attitude is shown to be asymptotically stable. Additionally, the control law does not require specific knowledge of the body׳s inertia properties, and is therefore robust to such modelling errors.