Intelligent cooperative control method for flexible probe landing on small celestial bodies

A novel flexible landing scheme is recently proposed to achieve soft landing on small celestial bodies. Limited by the special configuration and influenced by the flexible deformation, the attitude control of the flexible probe is challenging. To achieve a stable attitude maneuver, an intelligent cooperative control method is investigated for the flexible probe. Firstly, an equivalent model is established characterizing the flexible probe's attitude by the difference of the nodes' altitude. Then, a compensation-feedback control law of the nodes' altitude difference is designed. The compensation term trains a deep learning network to offset the internal force caused by the flexible deformation. The feedback term using a sliding mode control to converge on the desired nodes' altitude difference. Simple allocation law is given to coordinate the thruster of each node to execute the control command. Simulation results show that the proposed method can coordinate the limited control ability of the multiple thrusters. and control the probe's attitude steadily during the flexible landing.