Distributed Attitude Coordinated Control of Multiple Spacecraft with Attitude Constraints

This paper addresses the distributed attitude coordinated tracking problem for multiple constrained spacecraft by state and output feedback. Since only parts of the followers can acquire the states of the dynamic leader, a distributed finite-time sliding-mode estimator is first proposed to reconstruct the information of the leader's attitude and angular velocity accurately. Then, to guarantee the attitude constraints of spacecraft systems, we use the integral barrier Lyapunov function technique to propose a distributed state feedback attitude tracking control algorithm. Next, in the case without angular velocity sensors, we design a distributed attitude tracking control law via output feedback using high-gain observers. In the two proposed control schemes, the adaptive neural networks are introduced to tackle the model uncertainties. The uniform ultimate boundedness of all the state errors can be guaranteed by the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, numerical results are given to show the feasibility of the proposed schemes.