Truly Distributed Finite-Time Attitude Formation-Containment Control for Networked Uncertain Rigid Spacecraft

This article addresses the finite-time attitude formation-containment control problem for networked uncertain rigid spacecraft under directed topology. A unified distributed finite-time attitude control framework, based on the sliding-mode control (SMC) principle, is developed. Different from the current state of the art, the proposed attitude control method is suitable for not only the leader spacecraft but also the follower spacecraft, and only the neighbor state information among spacecraft is required, allowing the resulting control scheme to be truly distributed. Furthermore, the proposed method is inherently continuous, which eliminates the undesired chattering problem. Such features are deemed favorable in practical spacecraft applications. In addition, upon using the proposed neuro-adaptive control technique, the attitude formation-containment deployment can be achieved in finite time with sufficient accuracy, despite the involvement of both the uncertain inertia matrices and external disturbances. The effectiveness of the developed control scheme is confirmed by numerical simulations.