Finite-time sliding mode attitude control for rigid spacecraft without angular velocity measurement

The continuous finite-time nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM) attitude tracking control for rigid spacecraft is investigated. Firstly, a finite-time attitude controller combined with a new adaptive update law is designed. Different from existing controllers, the proposed controller is inherently continuous and the chattering is effectively reduced. Then, an adaptive model-free finite-time state observer (AMFFTSO) and an angular velocity calculation algorithm (AVCA) are developed to estimate the unknown angular velocity. The unique feature of the proposed method is that the finite-time estimation of angular velocity is achieved and no prior knowledge of quaternion derivative upper bound is needed. Next, based on the estimated angular velocity, a finite-time attitude controller with only attitude measurement is developed. Finally, some simulations are presented and the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is illustrated.