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It is a new design concept to employ control moment gyroscopes (CMGs) as reactionless actuators for space robots. Such actuation has several noticeable advantages such as weak dynamical coupling and low power consumption over traditional joint motor actuation. This paper presents a robust control law for a CMG-actuated space robot in presence of system uncertainties and closed-chain constraints. The control objective is to make the manipulation variables to track the desired trajectories, and reduce the possibility of CMG saturation simultaneously. A reduced-order dynamical equation in terms of independent motion variables is derived using Kane's equations. Desired trajectories of the independent motion variables are derived by minimum-norm trajectory planning algorithm, and an adaptive sliding mode controller with improved adaptation laws is proposed to drive the independent motion variables tracking the desired trajectories. Uniformly ultimate boundedness of the closed loop system is proven using Lyapunov method. The redundancy of the full-order actual control torques is utilized to generate a null torque vector which reduces the possibility of CMG angular momentum saturation while producing no effect on the reduced-order control input. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and the advantage of weak dynamical coupling of the CMG-actuated system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Based on the nonlinear controllability theory, this paper analyzes the attitude controllability for an underactuated spacecraft using two or one thrusters in sequence. In order to provide a preconditional guide on designing the control law for the underactuated attitude control system in the actual case, the underactuated spacecraft with respect to the orbit frame is investigated in the presence of periodical oscillation disturbance. First, attitude dynamic model was established for an underactuated spacecraft actuated by three thrusters, one or two of which has failed separately, and the special orthogonal group (SO(3)) is deployed to describe the attitude motions. Second, Liouville theorem and Poincaré’s recurrence theorem were used to confirm that the drift field is Weakly Positively Poisson Stable (WPPS). Furthermore, the sufficient and necessary condition of controllability was obtained on the basis of Lie Algebra Rank Condition (LARC). Finally, according to the case of two available thrusters, angular velocity stabilization and three-axis attitude stabilization control laws are designed, and proved by Lyapunov stability theory and LaSalle invariant theorem. The analysis and simulation results illustrate the feasibility of the proposed control law. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]