Leaderless attitude synchronization control of multiple flexible spacecraft on SO(3)

• Published in: ISA transactions
• Main Authors: Feng, Chenlu, Jin, Weicheng, Chen, Ti, Wang, Lifeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 25.06.2025
• Subjects: Adaptive controller; Attitude control; Leaderless synchronization; Multiple spacecraft; Multiple spacecraft; Attitude control; Leaderless synchronization; Adaptive controller
• ISSN: 0019-0578; 1879-2022; 1879-2022
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isatra.2025.06.031

This paper presents adaptive controllers for leaderless attitude synchronization of multiple flexible spacecraft on SO(3) under communication topologies containing spanning tree(s). To provide a reference attitude for each spacecraft, distributed observers in 9-dimensional Euclidean space are proposed based on a smooth mapping from Euclidean space ℝ3×3 to Lie group SO(3). Both the scenarios with arbitrary and almost zero final angular velocities are considered. Subsequently, adaptive continuous controllers on SO(3) are presented to achieve the leaderless attitude synchronization subject to external disturbance, while guaranteeing boundedness of flexible vibration. Rigorous proofs are presented to show the convergence of the proposed control methods. The effectiveness of the proposed strategies is further demonstrated by numerical simulations. •Leaderless controllers are proposed for attitude synchronization of multiple flexible spacecraft.•Distributed observers in 9-dimensional Euclidean space are developed to provide a reference attitude for each spacecraft.•The consensus strategies can work under general communication graphs containing spanning tree(s).