Super-Twisting Sliding Mode Design for Spacecraft Attitude Control with Actuators Constraints

This paper considers robust Sliding Mode Control (SMC) methods for spacecraft attitude maneuvers. The quater-nions representation is used to describe the spacecraft attitude dynamics, while the actuation system consists of a cluster of four reaction wheels in pyramidal configuration. The saturation values of the cluster are used to design the control law, which is based on the Super-Twisting (STW) SMC algorithm. A novel strategy is proposed to design the parameters of the STW control law so that it does not overload the actuator limits while maneuvering the spacecraft. The proposed control strategy is validated through extensive Monte Carlo simulations, aimed at testing the robustness of the controller under a wide range of initial conditions, external disturbances and values of system parameters.