High Minimum Inter-Execution Time Sigmoid Event-Triggered Control for Spacecraft Attitude Tracking With Actuator Saturation

This paper investigates the attitude tracking problem for spacecraft with limited communication, network congestion, unknown model parameters, actuator saturation, and external disturbances. To alleviate communication load, a novel sigmoid event-triggered mechanism is proposed with the special ability to guarantee a high minimum inter-execution time to avoid network congestion like package loss or time delay effectively. A neural network-based adaptive control algorithm is designed to deal with unknown model parameters. Besides, the problem of actuator saturation is tackled by introducing a dynamic loop gain function-based approach. System stability is proved by Lyapunov stability analysis and the high minimum inter-event time is substantiated by Zeno Behavior analysis with explanatory remarks. Numerical simulation results also show that a high minimum inter-event time and a high average inter-event time can be realized on the premise of high attitude tracking accuracy. Compared with all the previous studies, the ratio of the minimum inter-execution time to the average minimum inter-execution time has been improved by nearly 10 times with the proposed approach. Note to Practitioners—This paper was motivated by the problem of spacecraft attitude takeover control, but it also applies to other aperiodic discrete-time control systems. Existing event-triggered control methods have solved the problem of limited communication for attitude takeover control of spacecraft by reducing the number of times wireless communication is required. This paper proposes a new method for realizing quasi-periodic control with a large time gap between any two consistent control impulses using a hyperbolic tangent function or another sigmoid function in an event-triggered mechanism. The proposed sigmoid event-triggered mechanism (ETM) can magnify the event-triggered threshold dozens of times in a short time to avoid unnecessary frequent triggering without decreasing the precision of control. It’s feasible to employ the proposed sigmoid ETM to deal with limited communication and network congestion in other network control systems that are constructed with similar dynamic structures. Furthermore, it would be marvelous if we could transform this sigmoid ETM into a high-efficiency decision-making mechanism in some control systems without using a wireless network. Now we are studying how to realize orbital-attitude (maneuver) control with a relatively average time interval and fewer times of orbit transfer by using the proposed sigmoid ETM. Besides, to further improve the system performance, we are also seeking to further increase the ratio of the minimum inter-execution time to the average inter-execution time. For the purpose of a more even distribution of the triggering events on the time axis, we may modify the proposed sigmoid event-triggered method or associate it with other methods.