A New Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Mode Control for Rigid Spacecraft Attitude Tracking

Abstract

This paper addresses the finite time attitude tracking for rigid spacecraft with inertia uncertainties and external disturbances. First, a new nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) surface is proposed for singularity elimination. Second, a robust controller based on NTSM is designed to solve the attitude tracking problem. It is proved that the new NTSM can converge to zero within finite time, and the attitude tracking errors converge to an arbitrary small bound centered on equilibrium point within finite time and then go to equilibrium point asymptotically. The appealing features of the proposed control are fast convergence, high precision, strong robustness, and easy implementation. Simulations verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.