Observer-based adaptive sliding mode fault-tolerant control for the underactuated space robot with joint actuator gain faults

summary:An adaptive sliding mode fault-tolerant controller based on fault observer is proposed for the space robots with joint actuator gain faults. Firstly, the dynamic model of the underactuated space robot is deduced combining conservation law of linear momentum with Lagrange method. Then, the dynamic model of the manipulator joints is obtained by using the mathematical operation of the block matrices, hence the measurement of the angular acceleration of the base attitude can be omitted. Subsequently, a fault observer which can accurately estimate the gain faults is designed, and the estimated results are fed back to the adaptive sliding mode fault-tolerant controller. It is proved that the proposed control algorithm can guarantee the global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system through the Lyapunov theorem. The simulation results authenticate the effectiveness and feasibility of the control strategy and observation scheme

Barrier Lyapunov function-based adaptive fuzzy attitude tracking control for rigid satellite with input delay and output constraint

This paper investigates the adaptive attitude tracking problem for the rigid satellite involving output constraint, input saturation, input time delay, and external disturbance by integrating barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) and prescribed performance control (PPC). In contrast to the existing approaches, the input delay is addressed by Pade approximation, and the actual control input concerning saturation is obtained by utilizing an auxiliary variable that simplifies the controller design with respect to mean value methods or Nussbaum function-based strategies. Due to the implementation of the BLF control, together with an interval notion-based PPC strategy, not only the system output but also the transformed error produced by PPC are constrained. An adaptive fuzzy controller is then constructed and the predesigned constraints for system output and the transformed error will not be violated. In addition, a smooth switch term is imported into the controller such that the finite time convergence for all error variables is guaranteed for a certain case while the singularity problem is avoided. Finally, simulations are provided to show the effectiveness and potential of the proposed new design techniques

Advances in Spacecraft Systems and Orbit Determination

"Advances in Spacecraft Systems and Orbit Determinations", discusses the development of new technologies and the limitations of the present technology, used for interplanetary missions. Various experts have contributed to develop the bridge between present limitations and technology growth to overcome the limitations. Key features of this book inform us about the orbit determination techniques based on a smooth research based on astrophysics. The book also provides a detailed overview on Spacecraft Systems including reliability of low-cost AOCS, sliding mode controlling and a new view on attitude controller design based on sliding mode, with thrusters. It also provides a technological roadmap for HVAC optimization. The book also gives an excellent overview of resolving the difficulties for interplanetary missions with the comparison of present technologies and new advancements. Overall, this will be very much interesting book to explore the roadmap of technological growth in spacecraft systems

Safety Guaranteed Control for Spacecraft Inspection Mission

This paper investigates the safety guaranteed problem in spacecraft inspection missions, considering multiple position obstacles and logical attitude forbidden zones. In order to address this issue, we propose a control strategy based on control barrier functions, summarized as "safety check on kinematics" and "velocity tracking on dynamics" approach. The proposed approach employs control barrier functions to describe the obstacles and to generate safe velocities via the solution of a quadratic programming problem. Subsequently, we design a proportional-like controller based on the generated velocity, which, despite its simplicity, can ensure safety even in the presence of velocity tracking errors. The stability and safety of the system are rigorously analyzed in this paper. Furthermore, to account for model uncertainties and external disturbances, we incorporate an immersion and invariance-based disturbance observer in our design. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, submitted to JGC

Asymptotic and finite-time almost global attitude tracking: representations free approach

In this paper, the attitude tracking problem is considered using the rotation matrices. Due to the inherent topological restriction, it is impossible to achieve global attractivity with any continuous attitude control system on $SO(3)$. Hence in this work, we propose some control protocols achieve almost global tracking asymptotically and in finite time, respectively. In these protocols, no world frame is needed and only relative state informations are requested. For finite-time tracking case, Filippov solutions and non-smooth analysis techniques are adopted to handle the discontinuities. Simulation examples are provided to verify the performances of the control protocols designed in this paper.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1705.0282

Anti-Unwinding Attitude Control with Fixed-Time Convergence for a Flexible Spacecraft

This paper investigates the fixed-time attitude tracking control problem for flexible spacecraft with unknown bounded disturbances. First, with the knowledge of norm upper bounds of external disturbances and the coupling effect of flexible modes, a novel robust fixed-time controller is designed to deal with this problem. Second, the controller is further enhanced by an adaptive law to avoid the knowledge of norm upper bounds of external disturbances and coupling effect of flexible modes. This control law guarantees the convergence of attitude tracking errors in fixed time where the settling time is bounded by a constant independent of initial conditions. Moreover, the proposed controllers can prevent the unwinding phenomenon. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control scheme

Comprehensive review on controller for leader-follower robotic system

985-1007This paper presents a comprehensive review of the leader-follower robotics system. The aim of this paper is to find and elaborate on the current trends in the swarm robotic system, leader-follower, and multi-agent system. Another part of this review will focus on finding the trend of controller utilized by previous researchers in the leader-follower system. The controller that is commonly applied by the researchers is mostly adaptive and non-linear controllers. The paper also explores the subject of study or system used during the research which normally employs multi-robot, multi-agent, space flying, reconfigurable system, multi-legs system or unmanned system. Another aspect of this paper concentrates on the topology employed by the researchers when they conducted simulation or experimental studies

Fault Diagnosis and Fault-Tolerant Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

With the increasing demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in both military and civilian applications, critical safety issues need to be specially considered in order to make better and wider use of them. UAVs are usually employed to work in hazardous and complex environments, which may seriously threaten the safety and reliability of UAVs. Therefore, the safety and reliability of UAVs are becoming imperative for development of advanced intelligent control systems. The key challenge now is the lack of fully autonomous and reliable control techniques in face of different operation conditions and sophisticated environments. Further development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control systems is required to be reliable in the presence of system component faults and to be insensitive to model uncertainties and external environmental disturbances. This thesis research aims to design and develop novel control schemes for UAVs with consideration of all the factors that may threaten their safety and reliability. A novel adaptive sliding mode control (SMC) strategy is proposed to accommodate model uncertainties and actuator faults for an unmanned quadrotor helicopter. Compared with the existing adaptive SMC strategies in the literature, the proposed adaptive scheme can tolerate larger actuator faults without stimulating control chattering due to the use of adaptation parameters in both continuous and discontinuous control parts. Furthermore, a fuzzy logic-based boundary layer and a nonlinear disturbance observer are synthesized to further improve the capability of the designed control scheme for tolerating model uncertainties, actuator faults, and unknown external disturbances while preventing overestimation of the adaptive control parameters and suppressing the control chattering effect. Then, a cost-effective fault estimation scheme with a parallel bank of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) is proposed to accurately estimate actuator fault magnitude and an active fault-tolerant control (FTC) framework is established for a closed-loop quadrotor helicopter system. Finally, a reconfigurable control allocation approach is combined with adaptive SMC to achieve the capability of tolerating complete actuator failures with application to a modified octorotor helicopter. The significance of this proposed control scheme is that the stability of the closed-loop system is theoretically guaranteed in the presence of both single and simultaneous actuator faults

CONTROL STRATEGY OF MULTIROTOR PLATFORM UNDER NOMINAL AND FAULT CONDITIONS USING A DUAL-LOOP CONTROL SCHEME USED FOR EARTH-BASED SPACECRAFT CONTROL TESTING

Over the last decade, autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have seen increased usage in industrial, defense, research, and academic applications. Specific attention is given to multirotor platforms due to their high maneuverability, utility, and accessibility. As such, multirotors are often utilized in a variety of operating conditions such as populated areas, hazardous environments, inclement weather, etc. In this study, the effectiveness of multirotor platforms, specifically quadrotors, to behave as Earth-based satellite test platforms is discussed. Additionally, due to concerns over system operations under such circumstances, it becomes critical that multirotors are capable of operation despite experiencing undesired conditions and collisions which make the platform susceptible to on-board hardware faults. Without countermeasures to account for such faults, specifically actuator faults, a multirotors will experience catastrophic failure. In this thesis, a control strategy for a quadrotor under nominal and fault conditions is proposed. The process of defining the quadrotor dynamic model is discussed in detail. A dual-loop SMC/PID control scheme is proposed to control the attitude and position states of the nominal system. Actuator faults on-board the quadrotor are interpreted as motor performance losses, specifically loss in rotor speeds. To control a faulty system, an additive control scheme is implemented in conjunction with the nominal scheme. The quadrotor platform is developed via analysis of the various subcomponents. In addition, various physical parameters of the quadrotor are determined experimentally. Simulated and experimental testing showed promising results, and provide encouragement for further refinement in the future

Fuzzy-Model-Based (FMB) Control of a Spacecraft with Fuel Sloshing Dynamics

During the upper-stage separation and orbit injection, orbital control, and attitude maneuver, propellant slosh in partially-filled fuel tanks can cause dynamical instability or pointing errors. The spacecraft dynamics combined with propellant sloshing results in a highly nonlinear and coupled dynamic system that requires a complicated control law. This problem has been a long-standing concern for space missions. The purpose of this research is two fold. The first part is to investigate and develop nonlinear Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model-based controllers for a spacecraft with fuel sloshing considering the input constraints on the actuators. It includes i) a fuzzy controller/observer with a minimum upper-bound control input based on the parallel-distributed compensation (PDC) technique, ii) a fuzzy controller/observer based on the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) that uses the premises of the T-S model, and iii) a robust-optimal fuzzy-model-based controller/observer. The designed controllers are globally asymptotically stable and have a satisfactory performance and robustness. The second part of the research is to develop a mathematical model of a spinning spacecraft with fuel sloshing during high-g maneuvers. The equations of motion of a spacecraft with partially-filled multiple-tanks are derived using the Kane’s method. To do this, two spherical pendulums as an equivalent mechanical model of the fuel sloshing are adopted. The effect of the slosh model parameters on the spacecraft nutation angle is studied. The developed model is validated via several numerical simulations