Stable spinning deployment of space triangle tethered formation system using event-triggered sliding mode control

Abstract

This paper investigates the stable spinning deployment control problem for space triangle tethered formation systems (TTFS) subject to model uncertainties, external disturbances, and limited communication resources. First, by integrating the nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control (NFTSMC) with extended state observer (ESO), a control scheme is designed. Based on the Lyapunov theory proof, the proposed method can ensure stable tension control in finite time. Then, an event-triggered mechanism is incorporated into the proposed control strategy to reduce onboard resource consumption and maintain the expected configuration. In contrast to existing works on the TTFS, the proposed controller can update the actuator aperiodically such that it is more suitable and efficient in practice. Finally, numerical simulation results exhibit the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.