Fixed-Time Attitude Control for Rigid Spacecraft With Actuator Saturation and Faults

This brief investigates the finite-time control problem associated with attitude stabilization of a rigid spacecraft subject to external disturbance, actuator faults, and input saturation. More specifically, a novel fixed-time sliding mode surface is developed, and the settling time of the defined surface is shown to be independent of the initial conditions of the system. Then, a finite-time controller is derived to guarantee that the closed-loop system is stable in the sense of the fixed-time concept. The actuator-magnitude constraints are rigorously enforced and the attitude of the rigid spacecraft converges to the equilibrium in a finite time even in the presence of external disturbances and actuator faults. Numerical simulations illustrate the spacecraft performance obtained using the proposed controller.