Guaranteed performance based adaptive attitude tracking of spacecraft with control constraints

The guaranteed performance control problem of spacecraft attitude tracking with control constraint, disturbance and time-varying inertia parameters is investigated. A new saturation function is designed to satisfy different magnitude constraints by introducing a piecewise smooth asymmetric Gauss error function. Based on the mean-value theorem, the constrained problem is transformed into an unconstrained control design subject to an unknown bounded coefficient matrix. To satisfy the constraints by performance functions, a tracking error constrained control is developed based on a hyperbolic arc-tangent asymmetric barrier Lyapunov function (BLF). In the backstepping framework, an adaptive robust control law is proposed by employing a smooth robust term simultaneously counteracting the parametric and non-parametric uncertainties, where the unknown coefficient matrix resulting from the control constraint is compensated by a Nussbaum function matrix. Rigorous stability analysis indicates that the proposed control law realizes the asymptotically tracking of spacecraft attitude and that the tracking error remains in a prescribed set which implies the achievement of the guaranteed transient performance. Numerical simulations validate the proposed theoretical results.