Quaternion-based adaptive control for staring-mode observation spacecraft

Abstract

The spacecraft staring-mode observation is to render space-borne optical sensor an accurate and continuous pointing strategy at a specified ground target within a specified time span. First, the desired attitude reference trajectory are derived from the geographic information according to the need of the staring-mode. Then, an adaptive tracking control law is proposed to accomplish the staring-mode maneuver suffering from the inertia matrix uncertainty. In addition, a signum function is mixed in the switching surface in controller to produce a maneuver to the reference attitude trajectory in a shortest distance. The stability of the resulting system by the proposed controller is guaranteed by the Lyapunov-based method. Simulation results are presented to illustrate all the technical aspects of this work.