Anti-unwinding adaptive super-twisting attitude control for spacecraft

This article addresses the attitude manoeuvre control without unwinding based on variable gain (i.e. adaptive) super-twisting algorithm (STA) and the modified Rodrigues parameters (MRPs). First, a selection logic for the MRP set and its shadow set is designed in order to construct an attitude control system model for rigid spacecraft. Second, a nonlinear sliding function is presented, and on the sliding phase, finite-time convergence and anti-unwinding performance are guaranteed. As a result, a first-order sliding mode controller is created to ensure finite-time convergence and anti-unwinding performance on the reaching phase. To alleviate the chattering and improve convergence speed, an adaptive STA is presented, and the finite-time convergence and anti-unwinding performance are guaranteed on the reaching phase. Furthermore, the adaptive gains are designed based on dual-layer adaptive law, which allows the gains to be increased and decreased as appropriate. It is further demonstrated that when the controller gains are time-varying according to adaptive law, the convergence property and anti-unwinding performance are guaranteed. Numerical simulations are carried out to illustrate the closed-loop system's performance under the proposed control scheme.