Robust fault tolerant attitude stabilization control for flexible spacecraft under partial loss of actuator effectiveness

Robust fault tolerant attitude stabilization control problem for flexible spacecraft is investigated in this paper. First, a robust controller based on sliding mode control scheme is derived, in which function approximation technique is employed to represent system uncertainties. It is shown that the roll angle, pitch angle and yaw angle can be globally asymptotically stabilized in the presence of bounded disturbances and partial loss of actuator effectiveness fault. Moreover, adaptive scheme is employed to estimate the uncertain bound of actuator fault such that the real bound value of the fault is not used in advance for the designers. Complete stability and performance analysis are presented and illustrative simulation results of application to a spacecraft show that high precise attitude control is successfully achieved in the presence of various scenarios of control effect failures.