High-Precision Attitude Tracking Control of Space Manipulator System Under Multiple Disturbances

Precise attitude control of space manipulators plays an important role in advanced on-orbit assembly tasks. The vibration of flexible appendage and inertial uncertainties encountered in the operating process, however, may cause attitude error or even safety threats to the space manipulator system. In this article, a high-precision attitude control scheme of a space manipulator system is designed via a combination of disturbance observer (DO), prescribed performance-based H ∞ control, and iterative learning control (ILC) techniques. The proposed control scheme consists of three portions: 1) a DO that estimates the vibration disturbance caused by flexible appendage of base satellite; 2) a robust H ∞ controller with prescribed performance to attenuate the inertial uncertainties resulting from capture of an unknown object; and 3) an ILC for improving the transient and steady-state process in the presence of a repetitive on-orbit assembly task. This novel control scheme can not only handle the flexible vibration and inertial uncertainty of the space manipulator but also achieve satisfactory tracking performance. Both simulation and experimental results confirm the superiority of the proposed control strategy.