Spacecraft Coupled Tracking Maneuver Using Sliding Mode Control with Input Saturation

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a sliding mode control scheme on for autonomous spacecraft formation flying via a virtual leader state trajectory. The configuration space for a spacecraft is the Lie group SE(3), which is the set of positions and orientations of the rigid spacecraft in three-dimensional (3D) Euclidean space. A virtual leader trajectory, in the form of natural attitude and translational (orbital) motion of a satellite, is generated offline. Each spacecraft tracks a desired relative configuration with respect to the virtual leader in a decentralized and autonomous manner to achieve the desired formation. The relative configuration between each spacecraft and the virtual leader is described in terms of exponential coordinates on SE(3). A new feedback control scheme is proposed for coupled translational and rotational maneuver using a new sliding surface, which is defined as the exponential coordinates and velocity tracking errors such that the sliding surface converges to zero without explicit re...