Nonlinear control and stability analysis of spacecraft attitude recovery

The problem of automated attitude recovery of rigid and flexible spacecraft is investigated using feedback linearization control and a novel approach for generating the control error signal based on quaternion addition. The attitude and flexible dynamics equations for a class of spacecraft is presented. The resulting nonlinear and coupled equations of the system are implemented into a high-fidelity user-friendly simulation environment. The simulator is used for the investigation of attitude recovery of flexible spacecraft using the feedback linearization approach. Since the flexible spacecraft is underactuated, the input-output linearization technique was specifically used to break up the system into two distinct parts, namely 1) an external linearizable system for which a linear controller can be easily implemented, and 2) an internal nonlinear unobservable system for which the associated zero dynamics is shown to be asymptotically stable for two representative cases. The overall closed-loop stability of the flexible spacecraft is analyzed rigorously and shown to be asymptotically stable using Lyapunov's method