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Updated: Mar 3, 2026

A Protocol for Real-time 3D Single Particle Tracking
Published on: January 3, 2018
Distributed finite-time tracking for a team of planar flexible spacecraft
Ti Chen1, Hao Wen1, Haiyan Hu1
1State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 29 Yudao Street, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210016, China.
Abstract:
The paper presents a distributed finite-time controller for multiple under-actuated spacecraft with flexible appendages to track a virtual leader with stationary states under an undirected communication graph. Each spacecraft of concern is simplified as a free-floating hub-beam system, which is an under-actuated Euler-Lagrange system by nature since only the hub is driven. In the undirected communication graph, it is assumed that only one spacecraft can receive the information from the virtual leader. A distributed finite-time control law is presented for such a multi-agent system. The closed-loop system is proven to converge to the desired states within a finite time via Lyapunov theory and homogeneous method. Finally, a comparison is made between the proposed controller and the PD controller to show the better performance of the proposed controller.
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