Switching gain reduction in adaptive sliding mode control for rigid spacecraft attitude maneuvers

This paper investigates the overadaptation problem in current adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC) for rigid spacecraft attitude maneuvers. The inertia matrix uncertainty and external disturbance are taken into account, and an adaptive scheme is employed for the switching gain calculation. A detailed analysis of existing ASMC design reveals the fact that the switching gain would be overestimated if the ASMC algorithm is developed in the framework of conventional sliding mode control (SMC), owing to the unrelated adaptation caused by initial tracking error. The global sliding mode concept of integral sliding mode control (ISMC) is exploited to solve such a problem. The advantages of the proposed strategy are twofold. First, a much smaller switching gain is generated as compared to conventional ASMC. Second, the resulting small switching gain would not slow down the system response. The advantages of the proposed strategy are verified by both theoretical analysis and simulation results.