Disturbance observer-based fault-tolerant attitude tracking control for rigid spacecraft with finite-time convergence

In this paper, finite-time fault-tolerant attitude tracking control is investigated for rigid spacecraft system with external disturbances, inertia uncertainties and actuator faults. A novel finite-time disturbance observer combined with a nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller is developed. Using an equivalent output error injection approach, a finite-time disturbance observer with simple structure is firstly designed to estimate lumped uncertainty. Then, to remove the requirement of prior knowledge about lumped uncertainty and reduce chattering, an adaptive finite-time disturbance observer is further proposed, and the estimations converge to the neighborhood of the true values. Based on the designed observer, a unified finite-time attitude controller is obtained automatically. Finally, both additive and multiplicative faults are considered for simulations and the results illustrate the great fault-tolerant capability of the proposed scheme.