Near minimum-time feedback attitude control with multiple saturation constraints for agile satellites

Agile satellites are of importance in modern aerospace applications, but high mobility of the satellites may cause them vulnerable to saturation during attitude maneuvers due to limited rating of actuators. This paper proposes a near minimum-time feedback control law for the agile satellite attitude control system. The feedback controller is formed by specially designed cascaded sub-units. The rapid dynamic response of the modified Bang–Bang control logic achieves the near optimal property and ensures the non-saturation properties on three-axis. To improve the dynamic performance, a model reference control strategy is proposed, in which the on-line near optimal attitude maneuver path is generated by the cascade controller and is then tracked by a nonlinear back-stepping controller. Furthermore, the accuracy and the robustness of the control system are achieved by momentum-based on-line inertial identification. The rapid attitude maneuvering can be applied for tasks including the move to move case. Numerical simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy in terms of the saturation-free property and rapidness.