Fault tolerant small satellite attitude control using adaptive non-singular terminal sliding mode

To eliminate the effect of the uncertain disturbances and improve the control accuracy of spacecraft Attitude Control System, a nonlinear control algorithm named nonsingular terminal sliding-mode feedback controller is proposed in this work, which is mainly made up of nonsingular terminal sliding-mode controller and sliding-mode feedback controller. In the first place, nonsingular terminal sliding-mode controller is designed, which guarantees global asymptotic convergence of the attitude in the presence of the uncertain perturbations from the space. Despite that, it is the influence of the uncertain disturbances that hinder the control accuracy. Then, in order to promote the control accuracy, the sliding-mode feedback controller based on the principle of minimum sliding-mode error is proposed, which is used to compensate the control errors of the nonsingular terminal sliding-mode controller caused by the uncertainties. Hence, the determination principle of the weighting matrix in sliding-mode feedback controller is discussed, and the algorithm structure of the sliding-mode feedback controller is also analyzed, which provides the theoretical basis for the sliding-mode feedback controller. By contrast, an adaptive fuzzy algorithm is designed and introduced into the nonsingular terminal sliding-mode controller to improve the control accuracy, which named the nonsingular terminal fuzzy sliding-mode controller. Last but not the least, several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed nonsingular terminal sliding-mode feedback controller. Simulation results confirm that the control accuracy of the nonsingular terminal sliding-mode feedback controller is higher than the nonsingular terminal sliding-mode controller and the same as nonsingular terminal fuzzy sliding-mode controller. Not only is the calculation of the nonsingular terminal fuzzy sliding-mode feedback controller smaller than nonsingular terminal fuzzy sliding-mode controller, the adjusted parameters are also fewer than nonsingular terminal fuzzy sliding-mode controller obviously. The numerical results clearly indicate that the proposed nonsingular terminal sliding-mode feedback controller based on the principle of minimum sliding-mode error can compensate control errors accurately and quickly; therefore, it can reduce the effect of the uncertainties from the space indirectly.

This paper proposes two adaptive nonlinear control algorithms based on a variable-structure control design for multiple spacecraft formation flying. The nonlinear dynamics describing the motion of the follower spacecraft relative to the leader spacecraft are considered for the case in which the leader spacecraft is in an elliptical reference orbit, and the stability of such a formation in the presence of external perturbations is investigated. This paper presents fault-tolerant control schemes to account for accidental or degradation faults in spacecraft sensors and thrusters. The nonlinear analytical model describing the system is used to develop two adaptive fault-tolerant control laws (continuous sliding mode control and nonsingular terminal sliding mode control) that guarantee global asymptotic convergence of the position tracking error in the presence of unknown follower spacecraft mass and external disturbances. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed controllers to maintain the relative motion by correcting for initial offsets and external perturbation effects that tend to disperse the formation. Simulation results confirm that the suggested methodologies yield submillimeter formation, keeping precision and effectiveness in ensuring formation maneuvering. In addition, an abrupt blockage of the relative position sensors, thruster failure for a period of time, and thruster degradation (amidst formation keeping and reconfiguration maneuvers) are simulated to demonstrate the fault recovery capability of the controllers. The numerical results clearly establish the robustness of the proposed reconfigurable adaptive control scheme for precise formation keeping in the event of sensor and thruster faults.

To improve the control precision of nonlinear spacecraft formation flying, the input–output linearization minimum sliding-mode error feedback controller is presented based on the linear-decoupled spacecraft formation model by input–output linearization method incorporating the sliding-mode control. This paper proposes a new strategy to estimate and offset the system-control errors, which include various kinds of uncertainties and disturbances. To facilitate the analysis, the linear-decoupled spacecraft formation model is first given; on which basis, the concept of equivalent control error is introduced to define the entire model error. Based on the minimum sliding-mode covariance constraint, a cost function is formulated to estimate the equivalent control error and fed back to the conventional sliding-mode control. It is shown that the sliding mode after the input–output linearization minimum sliding-mode error feedback controller will approximate to the ideal sliding mode with high-control precision. In addition, the new methodology is applied to spacecraft formation flying. It guarantees global asymptotic convergence of the relative-tracking error in the presence of the large perturbations. More exactly, the two input–output linearization minimum sliding-mode error feedback controller laws (continuous sliding-mode control and nonsingular terminal sliding-mode control) are developed for this spacecraft formation flying system. Several fault-tolerant scenarios are considered to verify that the input–output linearization minimum sliding-mode error feedback controller is still effective in the presence of faults in spacecraft thrusters. Numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methodology to maintain and reconfigure the spacecraft formation with existence of initial offsets and large perturbations effects.

Nonsingular terminal sliding mode control technique for attitude tracking problem of a small satellite with combined energy and attitude control system (CEACS)

Integrated Reconfiguration Mechanism for Quadrotors with Capability Analysis Against Rotor Failure

This study investigates the control performance of a structural building system during a seismic scenario using an adaptive nonsingular terminal sliding mode control. To realize the structural integrity of a building, it is necessary to equip the building with a structural control device. This research is focused on a hybrid control device that has excellent characteristics of passive and active control devices and implemented in a three degree-of-freedom system. The system, actuator, and controllers are designed by using the mathematical model developed in MATLAB/Simulink. The input excitation to the structure is taken from the El Centro earthquake that occurred in the 1940s with a magnitude of 6.9 Mw and the Southern Sumatra earthquake that occurred in 2007 with a magnitude of 8.4 Mw. Adaptive nonsingular terminal sliding mode control is the new proposed control strategy to be applied in structural control field is investigated in terms of controller performance in suppressing the vibrations, and then, compared with sliding mode control and fuzzy logic controller strategies. Sliding mode control is chosen to be compared with adaptive nonsingular terminal sliding mode control because of its advantages of robust performance, whereas fuzzy logic controller is chosen because of its intelligent control base. The effectiveness of the proposed controllers is evaluated based on the displacement response, performance indices, and the probability of building damage. The results have shown that the new proposed controller, an adaptive nonsingular terminal sliding mode control, reduced vibrations better and has superior performance compared with fuzzy logic controller and sliding mode control.

To realize satisfactory trajectory tracking control performance of hydraulic manipulators under strong couplings and large external disturbances, a novel model-free continuous nonsingular terminal sliding mode control method is proposed in this paper. The proposed method mainly has two elements, the time delay estimation (TDE) technique and the continuous nonsingular terminal sliding mode (CNTSM) control algorithm. The former utilizes only the position information of the close-loop control system and then realize the estimation and compensation of the lumped system dynamics, which can effectively reduce the required control gains needed by the latter and improve the system robustness. The latter enjoys the strong robustness of sliding mode (SM) control and combines the NTSM manifold and corresponding reaching law, and then guarantees high performance trajectory tracking control under complex disturbance. The convergence of the closed-loop control system is proved using Lyapunov stability theory, finally simulation was performed to verify the effectiveness and superiorities of the proposed control method over the existing linear SM control method.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an indirect design for sliding surface as a function of position and velocity of each joint (for mounted manipulator on base) and center of mass of mobile base which includes rotation of wheels. The aim is to control the mobile base and its mounted arms using a unified sliding surface. Design/methodology/approach A new implementation of sliding mode control has been proposed for wheeled mobile manipulators, regulation and tracking cases. In the conventional sliding mode design, the position and velocity of each coordinate are often considered as the states in the sliding surface, and consequently, the input control is found based on them. A mobile robot consisted of non-holonomic constraints, makes the definition of the sliding surface more complex and it cannot simply include the coordinates of the system. Findings Formulism of both sliding mode control and non-singular terminal sliding mode control were presented and implemented on Scout robot. The simulations were validated with experimental studies, which led to satisfactory analysis. The non-singular terminal sliding mode control actually had a better performance, as it was illustrated that at time 10 s, the error for that was only 8.4 mm, where the error for conventional sliding mode control was 11.2 mm. Originality/value This work proposes sliding mode and non-singular terminal sliding mode control structure for wheeled mobile robot with a sliding surface including state variables: center of mass of base, wheels’ rotation and arm coordinates.

Small satellites flying in formation present a more efficient and affordable way of achieving the same or better performance than a large satellite because of low cost, high density of functionality and a short development cycle. A key technology for achieving mission objectives is the attitude and orbit control system. The overall objective of this dissertation research focuses on developing advanced control strategies and fault tolerant control for satellite formation flying. It is necessary to design and operate the satellite formation flying system to reduce fuel consumption and improve control accuracy. This is a very challenging task due to the nonlinear nature of satellite formation dynamics and the risk of thrusters’ failures and sensors’ faults in the absence of hardware redundancy. A class of nonlinear leader-follower satellite formation flying systems subject to uncertain thrusters’ and sensors’ faults and external J2 disturbances has been studied applying fault detection and identification and second order sliding mode control methodologies. New fault detection and identification and fault tolerant control algorithms were compared with model based fault detection and identification and fault tolerant control algorithms in presence of large initial errors, timevarying external disturbances, and parameter uncertainties. The faults considered were modeled as constant or ramp faults. Numerical results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed active fault tolerant control under actuators’ and sensors’ faults. It has been shown that the proposed second order sliding mode control scheme can guarantee local asymptotic stability after system faults. Simulation results confirmed that the suggested control methodologies yield high formation keeping precision and effectiveness for leaderfollower formation flying systems. The tracking errors of the proposed second order sliding mode control, adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control, chattering free sliding mode control and classic sliding mode control resulting from the thruster faults are within 2 m, 4 m, 10 m and 1 m, respectively. The fuel consumption of the proposed second order sliding mode control was the least. It is also necessary to design a fault tolerant satellite attitude control system to reduce fuel consumption and improve control performance accuracy. The proposed fault tolerant attitude control algorithms were based on first order and higher order sliding mode control theory as well as fuzzy logic systems to achieve real time autonomous fault tolerant control. These algorithms were applied to attitude synchronization in both leader-follower formation flying and decentralized formation flying. Attitude synchronization during formation flying was examined considering actuator dynamics while decentralized attitude ynchronization was studied using graph theory with quaternion kinematics. The proposed fault tolerant control algorithm was compared with the existing satellite attitude system controllers in the literature and it was found that the proposed algorithm resulted in three axis attitude stabilization within 0.041◦ in all axes for the fault cases. The reaction wheels’ Coulomb friction, saturations, noise, dead-zones, bias fault and external disturbances are considered. Finally, a nonlinear adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller was tested using embedded nanosatellite hardware on a frictionless spherical air bearing system. The test results showed attitude errors of 0.8◦ using the proposed controller while a proportional integral derivative controller resulted in 5◦ attitude errors.

Small satellites flying in formation present a more efficient and affordable way of achieving the same or better performance than a large satellite because of low cost, high density of functionality and a short development cycle. A key technology for achieving mission objectives is the attitude and orbit control system. The overall objective of this dissertation research focuses on developing advanced control strategies and fault tolerant control for satellite formation flying. It is necessary to design and operate the satellite formation flying system to reduce fuel consumption and improve control accuracy. This is a very challenging task due to the nonlinear nature of satellite formation dynamics and the risk of thrusters’ failures and sensors’ faults in the absence of hardware redundancy. A class of nonlinear leader-follower satellite formation flying systems subject to uncertain thrusters’ and sensors’ faults and external J2 disturbances has been studied applying fault detection and identification and second order sliding mode control methodologies. New fault detection and identification and fault tolerant control algorithms were compared with model based fault detection and identification and fault tolerant control algorithms in presence of large initial errors, timevarying external disturbances, and parameter uncertainties. The faults considered were modeled as constant or ramp faults. Numerical results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed active fault tolerant control under actuators’ and sensors’ faults. It has been shown that the proposed second order sliding mode control scheme can guarantee local asymptotic stability after system faults. Simulation results confirmed that the suggested control methodologies yield high formation keeping precision and effectiveness for leaderfollower formation flying systems. The tracking errors of the proposed second order sliding mode control, adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control, chattering free sliding mode control and classic sliding mode control resulting from the thruster faults are within 2 m, 4 m, 10 m and 1 m, respectively. The fuel consumption of the proposed second order sliding mode control was the least. It is also necessary to design a fault tolerant satellite attitude control system to reduce fuel consumption and improve control performance accuracy. The proposed fault tolerant attitude control algorithms were based on first order and higher order sliding mode control theory as well as fuzzy logic systems to achieve real time autonomous fault tolerant control. These algorithms were applied to attitude synchronization in both leader-follower formation flying and decentralized formation flying. Attitude synchronization during formation flying was examined considering actuator dynamics while decentralized attitude ynchronization was studied using graph theory with quaternion kinematics. The proposed fault tolerant control algorithm was compared with the existing satellite attitude system controllers in the literature and it was found that the proposed algorithm resulted in three axis attitude stabilization within 0.041◦ in all axes for the fault cases. The reaction wheels’ Coulomb friction, saturations, noise, dead-zones, bias fault and external disturbances are considered. Finally, a nonlinear adaptive fuzzy sliding mode controller was tested using embedded nanosatellite hardware on a frictionless spherical air bearing system. The test results showed attitude errors of 0.8◦ using the proposed controller while a proportional integral derivative controller resulted in 5◦ attitude errors.

SummaryIn this study, a novel integrated fault tolerant control (FTC) strategy is proposed for a rigid satellite attitude systems under the case of external disturbance, Lipschitz nonlinearity, and sensor faults. Different from the traditional adaptive fault estimation method, an augmented fault estimation observer is designed for the considered faulty satellite attitude system, which could be used for estimating both system state and sensor fault. A virtual observer is firstly introduced, and then, a real observer is derived as a result of the unmeasurable information to be used for the design of the virtual observer. On this basis, an integrated FTC approach is developed for the considered faulty satellite attitude system by combining backstepping control and fractional order nonsingular terminal sliding mode control techniques, such that the closed‐loop system not only has good robustness to external disturbance but also has better fault tolerance capability to unknown sensor fault. Finally, a simulation example is provided to demonstrate the feasibility and advantage of the proposed FTC scheme.

A second-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode control (SONTSMC) is proposed to solve the stabilization and tracking problems of an inverted pendulum. Although, a first-order sliding mode controller with the integral of the cart position can eliminate the offset in the cart position caused by incorrect calibration of the pendulum angle while balancing the pendulum at the upright equilibrium position, its control precision and chattering reduction can be improved by using a higher-order sliding mode controller. Therefore, the SONTSMC is designed by combining nonsingular sliding mode control and first-order sliding mode control to construct a second-order sliding mode controller that enhances tracking accuracy and reduces the chattering problems associated with sliding mode control. The performance of the proposed control is compared with that of the linear quadratic regulator sliding mode control (LQRSMC) and the integral linear quadratic regulator sliding mode control (ILQRSMC) for CIP’s stabilization and tracking. The results indicate that SONTSMC significantly increases the control performance of CIP while efficiently utilizing control energy.

This paper presents a fault tolerant scheme employing adaptive non-singular fixed-time terminal sliding mode control (AFxNTSM) for the application of robotic manipulators under uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults. To begin, non-singular fixed-time terminal sliding mode control (FxNTSM) is put forth. This control method uses non-singular terminal sliding mode control to quickly reach fixed-time convergence, accomplish satisfactory performance in tracking, and produce non-singular and non-chatter control inputs. Then, without knowing the upper bounds beforehand, AFxNTSM is used as a reliable fault tolerant control (FTC) to estimate actuator faults and unknown dynamics. The fixed-time stability of the closed-loop system is established by the theory of Lyapunov analysis. The computer simulation results of the position tracking, control inputs, and adaptive parameters are presented to verify and illustrate the performance of the proposed strategy.

This study investigates a novel fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller via a finite-time disturbance observer for a class of mismatched uncertain nonlinear systems. For this purpose, a finite-time disturbance observer–based fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding surface is proposed, and the corresponding control law is designed using the Lyapunov stability theory to satisfy the sliding condition in finite time. The proposed fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode control based on a finite-time disturbance observer exhibits better control performance; guarantees finite-time convergence, robust stability of the closed-loop system, and mismatched disturbance rejection; and alleviates the chattering problem. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed fractional-order robust controller is illustrated via simulation results of both the numerical and application examples which are compared with the fractional-order nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller, sliding mode controller based on a disturbance observer, and integral sliding mode controller methods.

Extensive research has focused on enhancing the efficiency and stability of robotic arms. Sliding mode control (SMC) is commonly used in industrial robots due to its robustness and simplicity. However, SMC approaches have challenges such as chattering and slow convergence rates which can compromise tracking accuracy. To address these issues, this paper proposes a novel Super-Twisting Fast Non-singular Terminal Sliding Mode Control (ST-FNTSMC) strategy for a 3-DOF arm robot. The proposed approach significantly improves trajectory tracking accuracy, robustness, and convergence time and eliminates chattering. The proposed controller was tested in the presence of model mismatches and external disturbances. The super-twisting methodology avoided chattering effects and increased robustness against perturbations. Two Lyapunov functions ensure closed system stability and finite-time convergence. The designed ST-FNTSMC controller is implemented in real-time using a Smart Man Robot manipulator. Its performance is compared to other sliding mode controllers, such as conventional PID Sliding Mode Control (PID-SMC), Non-singular Terminal Sliding Mode Control (NTSMC), and Fast Non-singular Terminal Sliding Mode Control (FNTSMC). Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed controller, highlighting its effectiveness in improving the efficiency and stability of industrial robots.