Design of a novel sliding mode controller for the attitude control of reentry vehicle

A novel sliding mode control method was proposed in this paper, which is not only capable of improving the robustness of the existing control law, but can also effectively attenuate chattering. In the design process, a novel dynamic sliding mode surface was designed firstly based on the nominal system and the existing control law. Then the super-twisted algorithm was improved. A fast continuous and finite time convergence algorithm was obtained, which was adopted as the novel reaching law for the first time. The reaching law combined with the sliding mode surface can greatly enhance the robustness of the existing control law. In addition, since the sliding mode switching law is continuous, the chattering was greatly attenuated. The proposed method was then applied to attitude tracking control of reentry vehicle and the robustness of the existing control law was effectively enhanced under large disturbance. Finally, the effectiveness of the method was demonstrated through simulation.