Sliding mode attitude tracking of rigid spacecraft with disturbances

The attitude tracking control problem of a spacecraft nonlinear model with external disturbances and inertia uncertainties is addressed in this paper. First, a new sliding mode controller is designed to ensure the asymptotic convergence of the attitude and angular velocity tracking errors against external disturbances and inertia uncertainties by using a modified differentiator to estimate the total disturbances. Second, an adaptive algorithm is applied to compensating the disturbances, by which another sliding mode controller is successfully designed to achieve a high performance on the attitude tracking in the presence of the inertia uncertainties, external disturbances and actuator saturations. Finally, simulation results are presented to illustrate effectiveness of the control strategies.