Finite-Time Attitude Tracking of Spacecraft With Fault-Tolerant Capability

A finite-time attitude tracking control scheme is presented for rigid spacecraft subject to constant but unknown inertia and external disturbances. The controller, developed using sliding mode control technique, has great fault-tolerant capability to accommodate four types of actuator faults. Different from most of the existing works on attitude fault-tolerant control (FTC), the developed controller guarantees the desired attitude to be followed in finite time, which is critical for FTC systems. Moreover, the convergence time is an explicit parameter for designer's choice. Thus, the controller design simply meets the finite-time requirement. The attitude-tracking performance is evaluated through a numerical example.