Finite‐time constrained attitude regulation for spacecraft formation with disturbances on SO(3)$$ SO(3) $$

Abstract

This paper addresses the finite‐time constrained attitude regulation problem for spacecraft formation with disturbances on SOfalse(3false)$$ SO(3) $$. An artificial potential function (APF) is constructed based on the rotation matrix to handle the attitude constraints. By combining the terminal sliding mode control technique with the APF, a robust control law is proposed to achieve the almost globally constrained attitude regulation for spacecraft formation with disturbances in finite time. Then a leader‐following robust control law is developed using a modified finite‐time distributed observer when some spacecraft cannot obtain the desired attitude directly. Based on the Lyapunov stability theory and Artstein's transformation, the sufficient conditions are strictly derived for spacecraft formation to guarantee the almost globally leader‐following finite‐time constrained attitude regulation with disturbances and communication delay. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control laws.