ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

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ISA Transactions
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/isatrans

Research Article

Dual-quaternion based fault-tolerant control for spacecraft formation

ying with nite-time convergence
Hongyang Dong a, Qinglei Hu b,n, Guangfu Ma a
a
b

Department of Control Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, XueYuan Road No. 37, HaiDian District, Beijing 100191, China

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 1 December 2014
Received in revised form
28 February 2015
Accepted 14 December 2015
Available online 14 January 2016

Study results of developing control system for spacecraft formation proximity operations between a
target and a chaser are presented. In particular, a coupled model using dual quaternion is employed to
describe the proximity problem of spacecraft formation, and a nonlinear adaptive fault-tolerant feedback
control law is developed to enable the chaser spacecraft to track the position and attitude of the target
even though its actuator occurs fault. Multiple-task capability of the proposed control system is further
demonstrated in the presence of disturbances and parametric uncertainties as well. In addition, the
practical nite-time stability feature of the closed-loop system is guaranteed theoretically under the
designed control law. Numerical simulation of the proposed method is presented to demonstrate the
advantages with respect to interference suppression, fast tracking, fault tolerant and practical nite-time
stability.
& 2015 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Spacecraft formation
Dual quaternion
Fault tolerant control
Adaptive control
Finite time

1. Introduction
Spacecraft proximity operation like rendezvous and docking is
an important part of multi-spacecraft formation ying tasks. The
technology of spacecraft proximity has a pretty good application
prospect, and the advanced space transportation plan (ASTP) of
USA has identied this technology as a primary technology, and
many studies are focused on this. A leader-follower strategy was
applied to spacecraft formation in Ref. [1] even with actuator
saturation constraint. Ref. [2] introduced architecture for the
multi-agent coordination system including the leaderfollower
strategy, agent behavioral and virtual-structure approaches. Jiang
et al. [3] studied the two-point boundary value problem of a
leader-follower spacecraft formation ying in unperturbed elliptical reference orbits, and showed this problem can be solved just
like the classical Lambert's problem. Breger et al. [4] presented a
schedule for online generation of safe, fuel-optimized rendezvous
trajectories. Minimum-fuel, impulsive, time-xed solutions for the
problem of orbital rendezvous are further presented with path
constraints in Ref. [5].
Modeling and control are both core technologies of spacecraft
formation ying tasks. For the traditional formation control methods, the orbit control system and the attitude control
system are often considered separately, but in practice, due to the
n

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: huql_buaa@buaa.edu.cn (Q. Hu).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2015.12.008
0019-0578/& 2015 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

strong coupling between these two sub-systems, they are generally required to be regarded as a whole six-degrees-of-freedom
(6-DOF) system, and this has better accuracy than traditional
separated system. Many works on the modeling and control problems of the 6-DOF motion of spacecraft has been paid more
attentions recently [612]. In Ref. [6], a 6-DOF synchronized control of spacecraft formation ying in the presence of input constraint and parameter uncertainties is presented. Zhang et al. [7]
presented an integrated relative position and attitude control
strategy for a pursuer spacecraft ying to a space target in proximity operation missions. Gaulcher [8] took advantage of small
angle approximation and a series of assumptions, established a
linear coupling dynamic model for spacecraft. Sinclair et al. [9]
used Cayley to transform a coupling model in the same mathematical framework with Ref. [8]. Comparing with other coupling
modeling methods mentioned above, dual-number description is
considered as one of the most widely used one, due to its clear
physical meaning and high calculation efciency. In addition, the
emergence and development of dual quaternion makes the dualnumber method is very suitable to describe the coupling motion of
spacecraft. Brodsky et al. [13,14] established a general coupling
dynamic model for the motion of rigid body by using dual number.
Wang et al. [15] proposed a 6-DOF relative-motion model by using
dual quaternion for spacecraft formation ying, and then presented several nite-time controllers. Under this, a nonlinear
adaptive coupling tracking controller based on dual quaternion
was presented in Ref. [16], which also considered the uncertainties
of mass and inertia.

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H. Dong et al. / ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

While, with the increasing complexity of spacecraft structure,

the probability of failure ascends signicantly, and this may cause
great economic loss. In this context, study on fault-tolerant control
is very meaningful for spacecraft control system. In Ref. [17], a
continuous globally stable tracking control algorithm was proposed for a spacecraft in the presence of unknown actuator failure,
control input saturation, uncertainty in inertial matrix and external disturbances. A sliding mode based nite-time control scheme
was presented to address the problem of attitude stabilization for
rigid spacecraft in the presence of actuator fault and external
disturbances in Ref. [18]. Cai et al. [19] presented an indirect
adaptive approach to attitude tracking control of spacecraft, which
is robust against disturbances, uncertainties and actuator failures.
Jin et al. [20] proposed a simple and effective fault tolerant control
method based on dynamic inversion and time-delay control theory for satellites with four reaction wheels. A fault diagnosis
approach in satellite systems for identifying time-varying thruster
faults is presented in Ref. [21].
Nevertheless, to the best of authors' knowledge, it should be
noted that all the above-mentioned results rarely considered the
fault-tolerant questions under the 6-DOF coupling model of
spacecraft formation. Due to the coupling of orbit and attitude
sub-system, the integrated fault-tolerant control laws will have
better universality than the separated ones. Furthermore, in
practical engineering, the state errors often are required to converge to a certain range in nite time. The problem combining all
of these aspects still poses considerable complexity and difculty
in the spacecraft formation control system design, and it remains
an open issue. Motivate by these facts, the integrated fault-tolerant
control problems under the coupling model are solved in this
paper. Specically, a nonlinear adaptive control low based on
sliding mode control and dual-quaternion-description model is
proposed for position and attitude tracking of spacecraft formation
ying. It is shown that this control method is not only robust to
the uncertainties of parameters and external disturbances, but also
adequate for the actuator faults. In addition, it is guaranteed theoretically that the closed-loop system is practical nite-time
stable.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces some
theories about dual number and dual quaternion. Section 3 states
the mathematical model of the spacecraft formation. The control
method is designed in Section 4. Numerical simulation is presented in Section 5 to demonstrate various features and effectiveness of the proposed control method. Finally, the paper is
completed with some concluding comments.

2. Dual number and dual quaternion

2.1. Dual number and dual vector
Dual Number was introduced by Clifford [22] and perfected by
Study [23]. The denition of a dual number can be described as
follows
a^ a a 3

where a; a 3 A R are called the real part and the dual part of a^
respectively, and is the dual unit with rules as

0; but a 0
2

The operations of dual number used in this paper are shown as

follows:
Addition and subtraction:
3
3
a^ 7 b^ a a 3 7 b b a 7 b a 3 7 b

Multiplication:
3
a^ b^ ab ab a 3 b

a^ a a 3 a a 3

where A R is a scalar.
Dual vector is a class of dual number, and its real and dual parts
are both vectors, it can be described as
a^ a a 3

6
3

where a and a are vectors of real numbers, respectively. Note that

if a is a three-dimensional rotor (line-vector) and a 3 is a threedimensional vector (free-vector), and then a^ can be called a
motor [13].
There are also some operation denitions of dual vector used in
the latter section:
Inner product
^ b^ 4 a U b a 3 U b
o a;

Switched inner product




a^
b^ ab a b

Norm
^ j j j aj j j j a 3 j j
j j aj

Corresponding product

^  a^ a 3 a 3

10

^  a^ Aa A 3 a 3
A

11

^ is a dual square matrix with A

where ^ is a dual number and A
and A 3 are both square matrix of real numbers.
2.2. Dual quaternion
Dual quaternion can be regarded as a class of dual vector,
whose real and dual parts are both quaternion, or a class of quaternion whose scalar part is dual number and vector part is dual
vector, and it can be described as
h
i
12
q^ ^ ; ^ q q 3
where ^ and ^ called the scalar part and vector part of
q^ respectively.
For the operations of dual quaternion, the following properties
that will be utilized in the subsequent control development and
analysis:
Multiplication
q^ 1 3 q^ 2 q1 3 q2 q1 3 q23 q13 3q2
h
i
^ 1 ^ 2  ^ 1 U ^ 2 ; ^ 1 ^ 2 ^ 2 ^ 1 ^ 1  ^ 2

13

where


q1 3 q2 1 2  1 U 2 ; 1 2 2 1 1  2

14

Cross product
3

q^ 1  q^ 2 q1  q2 q1  q23 q13  q2

15

H. Dong et al. / ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

Conjugate
h
i

q^ ^ ;  ^

16

In addition, the logarithmic operation of quaternion can be

described as follows [24]
8 arccos
< p2 abs a 1
2 1
17
ln q
: 0; 0; 0 abs 1

89

dual quaternion), regarding it as a quaternion (respectively, dual

quaternion) which scalar part is zero. Then by using dual quaternion, the relative coupled model of follower spacecraft can be
described by [15,25]
^ fl
2q_^ f l q^ f l 3
f

21

_^ f 
^ f
^ f q^  3
^ f
^ f
^ ff  M
^ ff  M
^ ll 3 q^ f l M
^ ff l
M
fl
fl
f

^ l 3 q^ f l F^ g F^ d F^ u
q^ f l 3


22

In virtue of Eq. (17), the logarithmic operation of dual quaternion are introduced in Ref. [15], which can be described as
follows

^ ff l ff l p_ ff l ff l  pff l is the relative velocity motor

where

ln q^ ln q q  1 3 q 3

f
f
lower with respect to the leader, and also, here F^ g f g fg is the

18

expressed in Ffb, and ff l is the relative angular velocity of the fol-

gravitational motor with f g and fg is the gravitational force and

f
f
gravity gradient torque respectively; F^ d f d fd is external
f
f
interference motor with f d and d is interference force and torque
f
f
f
respectively; F^ f fu is control motor with f and fu is control
f

3. Relative coupled dynamics and denition of fault

3.1. Relative coupled dynamics

force and torque respectively.

In this work, the spacecraft is assumed to be rigid body, and a

target-chaser spacecraft formation is considered. FI denotes the
inertial coordinate system, with its origin at the Geocentric. Flb and
Ffb denote the body-xed reference frame of the target and the
chaser, respectively, with their origins in the center of centroid of
corresponding spacecraft, and axes pointing along the principal
axes of inertias. Throughout the paper, using superscripts: I, l and f
represent the corresponding variable is expressed in inertial
coordinate system, body-xed reference frame of the leader or
body-xed reference frame of the follower, respectively (Fig. 1).
In order to describe the coupled movement of the follower
relative to the leader, the error dual quaternion is dened as
[15,16]
1
q^ f l qf l qf l 3 pff l
2

19

where qf l is the quaternion of Ffb with respect to Flb, pff l is the

relative position vector of follower with respect to the leader
expressed in Ffb.
The dual quality of the follower spacecraft is dened as
2
3
mf dd J f xx
J f xy
J f xz
6
7
^ f mf d I J 6
J f yx
mf dd J f yy
J f yz 7
20
M
f
4
5
d
J f zx
J f zy
mf dd J f zz
where mf is the quality and J f is the inertia matrix of the follower.
Throughout the paper, when three-dimensional vector (respectively, motor) does multiplication with quaternion (respectively,
zI

zlb

3.2. Denition of fault

The coupled model above does not consider the actuator fault
problem, but in practical applications, this problem often happens.
So that establishing a new model considering actuator fault is
necessary. This paper considers the partial failure of actuator, and
uses multiplicative factor to express the fault, then the kinetic
equation can be re-described as follow
f
^ f
^ f
^ f q^  3
^ f
^ ff  M
^_ f l 
^ ff  M
^ ll 3 q^ f l M
^ ff l
M
fl
f
f
f

^ ll 3 q^ f l F^ g F^ d E^  F^ u
q^ f l 3

E^ diag1  e1 t; 1 e2 t; 1 e3 t diag1  e13 t; 1  e23 t; 1  e33 t

and Eq. (23) can be re-described as
f
f
_f
^
^ ^ 3
^
^
^ ff  M
^ ll 3 q^ f l M
M
f ^ f l 
f ^ f  M f q
f ^ fl
fl
f
f
f
f

^ ll 3 q^ f l F^ g F^ d F^ u  E^  F^ u
q^ f l 3

24

Then using ^ 3 max 1 ei max 1  ei3 j j Ej j

i 1;2;3

xlb

23

where E^ E E 3 diage1 t; e2 t; e3 t diage13 t; e23 t; e33 t

is the dual matrix of fault factors with E and E 3 are force fault
factor matrix and torque fault factor matrix respectively. For the
partial failure problem of actuator, fault factors satisfy 0 o ei t; ei3
t r 1 (i1, 2, 3), specially, if any fault factor is equal to 1, the
corresponding actuator is working normally. It should be noted
that when ei t 0 or ei3 t 0, the corresponding actuator is
complete failure, then the question translates into an underactuated situation, this is not considered in this paper.
Dening

i 1;2;3

j j E 3 j j denotes the biggest degree of fault.

ylb
zfb

3.3. Control objective

yI

Consider the target-chaser spacecraft formation system with

^ f l;d t to denote
fault given by Eq. (21) and Eq. (23), use q^ f l;d t;

the desired state of the follower, and also use e^ q e^ ; e^ q^ f l;d 3 q^ f l
f
f
^ fl 
^ f l;d to denote the relative motion error
and e^ e ev

xfb
yfb

oI

xI

Fig. 1. Coordinate frames.

f
and velocity error respectively. Design a control input F^ u , such that
for all physically realizable initial conditions, the errors of states of
the closed-loop system are nite-time bounded, this can be
expressed as follows
t ZT r ;
j j e^ q tj j r and j j e^ tj j r where Tr is a nite
time, and are small and bounded positive constants.

90

H. Dong et al. / ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

f
_f
_^ l 3 q^ F^ f  M
^
^
^ f l 3
^ ll 3 q^ f l  q^ f l 3
M
f 0 ^ f l  q
f 0 ^ f l;d
fl
l
g0

4. Control law design

Terminal sliding mode based nite time control is rst introduced by Man et al. [26]. Then, this work was developed and
applied to spacecraft system [2729]. In Ref. [27], a discontinuous
nite-time control law was proposed such that the states will
eventually converge to a small region of the origin in the presence
of disturbances. Zou et al. [28] presented a nite-time attitude
tracking control scheme using terminal sliding mode and Chebyshev neural network. In this section, our control objective is to
design nite-time control law based on terminal sliding mode for
the open-loop dynamics given by Eq. (23) under the constraint
that the actuator fault is unknown. To develop the nite time
controller, the following denitions and lemma are further
required for system analysis.
Lemma 1. [30]: For a system x_ f x; u. Suppose that there exist
continuous function Vx, scalars 40, 0 o p o 1, and 0 o o 1,
such that
p
V_ r  V x
25
Then, the trajectory of this system is practical nite-time stable.
Moreover, the residual set of the solution of this system is given by


(

1p )

t 4 T
Vx r
26


1 
where 0 o r 1 is a scalar, and T o 1 is a nite time satises
1p

Vx0
, where Vx0 is the initial value of Vx.
T r
1  p

^
Lemma 2. [15]: For a dual quaternion qt
and the corresponding
^ then the following equation can be
^ t, dene ^ 2 lnq,
motor
established.
1d
^4
o ^ ; ^ 4 o ^ ;
2 dt

27

To facilitate the controller design, we also dene the auxiliary

variable, denoted by e^ e ep 92 lne^ q . Note that if
e^ e ep 2 lne^ q 2 ln eq 2eq  1 3 eq 3 0 0, one can
obtain ln eq 0 and eq  1 3 eq 3 0. From ln eq 0 and Eq. (17), eq
1; 0; 0; 0T can be achieved; in addition, according to
eq  1 3 eq 3 0, eq 1; 0; 0; 0T and Eq. (14), one can further get
eq 3 1; 0; 0; 0T ; in this case, e^ q 1 0 and e^ 0 0 can be
guaranteed. Then, a terminal sliding manifold is dened as:
s^ s s 3 s^ 1 ; s^ 2 ; s^ 3 

28

with s^ i si si3 e^ i c^ i  sige^ i ; i 1; 2; 3, and sige^ i

sgne i j e i j sgnepi j epi j with 0:5 o o 1.
Based on the open-loop tracking system given by Eq. (23), and
the subsequent stability analysis, we design the control input as
follows:




f
d
d ^
F^ u  ^ 0 
^  sgns^  ^  s^ 
 sgns^ 29
d
d
_

^ k1 diags^ 1  sgns^ 1 ; s^ 2  sgns^ 2 ; s^ 3  sgns^ 3  ^  ^ 30

where ^ diag^ 1 ; ^ 2 ; ^ 3 with ^ i i i3 , ^ diag^ 1 ; ^ 2 ; ^ 3
with
^ i i i3 ,
sgns^ sgns^ 1 ; sgns^ 2 ; sgns^ 3 
with
3
^ diag^ 1 ; ^ 2 ; ^ 3 with ^ i i i3 ,
sgns^ i sgns
i sgnsi ,



with i 4
i3 j and i3 4
i j, and k1, i , i3 ,i ,i3 ,i ,i3 , i 1, 2, 3,
are all positive constant values, and ^ is the estimation of ^ diag
3
^ ; ^ ; ^ with ^ , there 1 3 j 3 j and
1

i3 1 1 3 j 0i j 3 i3 , and also
^ 0 0 diag01
3
0

3
01 ;

 j e^ i j  1 

02

3
02 ;

1

03

^ diagc^ i
M
f0

^ f 0
^ ff
^ M
e^ ; e^ 
f
f

^ diagc^ i 
e^ i
 1  e^ ; e^
^ 3 M
f

^ f
^ ff l  q^ f l 3
^ ll 3 q^ f l  q^ f l 3
^ ll 3 q^ f l
M
f

^
^ ^
f
^
^ f
^ f l;d F d  f M f f
F^ g0  M
f

32

^ f is the nominal part and uncertain part of M

^ f 0 and M
^f
M
f
f
^
^
respectively, F g0 and F g is the nominal part and uncertain part of
f
F^ respectively, and
g

^ e^ ; e^ e 1e

!
eT e 1=2
1
1=2
T
1  0:5e e
e T
cot
e
2
e e
e  e ev  e  ep

with j e^ i j  1 j e i j  1 j e3 i j  1 .
Then the main result of this paper is summarized as:
Theorem 1. Given the closed-loop dynamics in Eqs. (21) and (23),
then the designed control law Eq. (29) and adaptive law Eq. (30) can
achieve the control objective proposed in Section 3.3.
Proof. Consider the follower Lyapunov function candidate

1

^ i
1
^
V s^
M
o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^ 4
fs
2
2k1

33

where ^ ^  ^ is the estimation error of ^ .

Then the differentiation of V with respect to time is shown as
follows





^ f s^_ 1 o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^_ 4
V_ s^

M
k1



h

i





_
^
s^
M f e^ diagc^ i 
e^ i
 1  e^_
1
_
o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^ 4
k1
h






^ ^_
^ i 
e^ i
 1  e^ ; e^
s^
M
f e diagc
1
_
 o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^ 4
k1



f


^  F^ f
s^
^ 0 ^ F^ u E^  I
u


1
_
o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^ 4
k1

34

After substituting Eqs. (29) and (30) into Eq. (34), one can
obtain
2

3

^  d ^  sgns^ I^  E
^  ^ d ^  sgns^


0
d
d
6

7


7
V_ 6
4s^

5

 d ^  sgns^ I^  E
d ^
^
^
^
^
^



sgn
s

E

s

d
d

1
_
o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^ 4
k1

2

3

^  d ^  sgns^ I^  E
^  ^ I^  E
^  d ^  sgns^


0
d
d
6

7
6

7
6

7
6 ^
 d ^  sigs^ ^  d ^  sigs^  ^  E^  s^
7
r 6s

7
d
d
6

7
6

7
4

5


^
d ^
d

d  sigs^  ^  d  sigs^

0i

3
03

31

1
_
o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^ 4
k1

r

3
X

i  j i3 j j si j i3  j i j j si3 j 

i1

X
i1

i Ei
si
2

H. Dong et al. / ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

 1
i3 Ei3 j si3 j 2 o1^  ^  ^ ; ^  ^ 4
k1

35

According to the properties of the sum of square, for any constant number 4 12, one can further obtain,

 ^ ; ^  ^ 4  k11 o 1^  ^  ^  ^ ; ^  ^  ^  ^ 4

1
o 1^  ^
k1

2  1

o 1^  ^  ^  ^ ; ^  ^  ^ 4
2k1
2k1
o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^  ^ 4

r

36

Substituting Eq. (36) into Eq. (35) further yields

V i 1 3 i 
i3

si
i3 
i

si3 j



2  1

o 1^  ^  ^  ^ ; ^  ^  ^ 4
o 1^  ^  ^ ; ^  ^ 4
2k1
2k1
1

r  1 V 21 

3 
X

2k1 i 1

3 

2  1 X
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2
2k1 i 1

i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2

2 1
V_ r  1 V 1 
1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2
2k1 i 1 i
1
2

37

r  V 2
1

3 
3 

2 1 X
X
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2
1  2i
2k1 i 1
2k1 i 1 i

32
38
i3 1  3 i
n
o
 1 min 1  12 ; 2  1 min 3 1  3 12 ,
with min 1 ; 22k
i
i
2k1
1
i 1, 2, 3.
For further analysis, the following two cases are considered:

12
Case (1). If
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2 Z1, i 1, 2, 3, it
follows that
12 2  1

2  1
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2 
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2 r 0
2k1
2k1

39
32

12

o 1, i 1, 2, 3, then based
Case (2). If i 1  i i3 1  3 i
on the conception of power function, one can obtain
12 2 1
2  1
0r
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2 
i 1  2i
2k1
2k1
2  1
32
40
i3 1  3 i r
8k1
2

In view of Eqs. (39) and (40), the following can be achieved

1
V_ r  V 2

41

3 
 3 P 1  2 3 1  3 3 2 .
where r 68k
i
i
i
i

2k
1
1
i1

After simple transformation, one can further obtain

8
< ei ci  sgnei j1 ei j sgne i j e i j 0
: evi ci3  sgnepij2 epi j sgnepi j epi j 0

: ci3  sgnepij2 epi j i3 40

44

45

Denite 1 ; 2 ; 3 , 3 13 ; 23 ; 33  and ^ 3 , and

then consider the follower Lyapunov function candidate
1
V 2 o e^ ; e^ 4
2

V_ 2 o e^ ; e_^ 4

3 
12
2  1 X
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2
2k1 i 1

After s ands 3 have reached the boundary b, for i 1, 2, 3, one

can obtain [15]
(
ei ci sgne i j e i j 1 ; j 1 j r b
43
evi ci3 sgnepi j epi j 2 ; j 2 j r b

46

In virtue of Lemma 2, then making the appropriate substitution

from Eq. (44) and Eq. (45) yields

3 
3 

2 1 X
X
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2
1  2i
2k1 i 1
2k1 i 1 i
32

12

3 
12
2 1 X
i 1  2i i3 1  3 i3 2
2k1 i 1

i3 1  3 i

V 0 is the initial time of V, and 0 o r 1. Since V can be guaranteed

to be bounded in nite time, so that the following inequality can
also be guaranteed.







x 4T 1
j j sj j ob; j j s 3 j j o b ; b
42
1 

By choosing reasonable c^ i , it can be guaranteed that

8
< ci  sgnei j1 ei j i 4 0



with 1 min mini 
i3
; mini3 
i
, i 1, 2, 3;
Then making the appropriate substitutions from Eq. (37), we
obtain
3
X

91

According to Lemma 1, the trajectories of the closed-loop sys

2
1
02
, where
tem can be driven into V r 1 in nite time T 1 r 2V

i3 j e3 i j 1

o e^ ; e^ 4


X
i1

r  2V 22

i j e i j 1
47


2 min min i ; min i3 ; i 1; 2; 3:
According to nite-time control theory, it can be guaranteed
that in nite time T 2 which satises T 1 r T 2 o1, the following
inequality can be established.
8
< j e i j r b=ci 1
48
1
: j epi j r b=c 3
i
(

Furthermore, one can obtain

j ei j r ci j e i j 1 r 2b
j evi j r ci3 j epi j 2 r 2b

49

Remark 1. By employing terminal sliding mode and some properties of dual quaternion, the tracking errors can be guaranteed to
converge to a small region of the origin in nite time under the
presence of actuators faults, extern disturbances and parameter
uncertainties, and this small region can be as small as desired by
choosing the appropriate control parameters.
Remark 2. In the controller, the adaptive law is used to estimate
and compensate the inuences caused by the uncertain fault, mass
and inertia as well. In addition, the linear term is introduced in the
adaptive law to limit controller gain and smooth the adaptive
process.
Remark 3. In comparison with other fault tolerant controllers
[1721], the controller proposed in this paper takes into account
the coupling of orbit motion and attitude motion, and regards the
faults of orbital actuator and attitude actuator as a whole problem
and then stabilizes the states of system in nite time. When
comparing with other coupling controller based on dual quaternion [15,16], the controller presented in this paper can guarantee the coupling motion of spacecraft formation to be stabilized

92

H. Dong et al. / ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

with nite time convergence, even in the presence of actuators

faults.

5. Numerical simulation and analysis

0.5

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

-0.5
1

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

0
-1
0.5
0
-0.5

Time (s)

Fig. 2. Time response of qf l .

fd 5 U 10  3 U sin 0:8t cos 0:5t cos 0:3t T N U m

and the actual quality and inertia are

2
3
82 0
0
6
7
mf 295kg; J f 4 0 80 0 5kg U m2
0

85

It is assumed that the maximum output force is limited as 5 N,

and the maximum output torque is limited as 1 N m.
The fault factor matrix is E^ E E 3 diag0:6; 0:8; 0:75
diag0:85; 0:5; 0:6, which mean that the actuators of the follower lose partial power. The initial parameters and control
parameters are shown in Table 2.
Table 1
Orbit parameters of the leader spacecraft.
Orbital parameters

Value

Eccentricity
Inclination
Longitude ascending node
Semi-major axis
Argument of perigee
Initial true anomaly

0.02
40
50
7000 km
45
10
3.986004  1014 (m3/s 2)

Table 2
Control parameters of DFF in simulation.
Parameters Value

c^ i
^ i
i
k1
^ i
qf l 0
f l 0
pf l 0
vf l 0

2/3
0:01 0:03
3 3
2
0.5
0:001 0:001
0:6245; 0:5; 0:5196; 0:3
0; 0; 0; 0rad=s
20; 50; 10m
0; 0; 0m=s

ADT

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

0
-20
0

o2

20

87

ADF

-20

o1

DFF

20

-10
-20
20

3o

ADT

f d 10  3 U 5 sin 0:6t 0:9t 3 cos 0:5t T N

The nominal quality and inertia of the follower are

2
3
85 0
0
6
7
mf 0 300kg; J f 0 4 0 79 0 5kg Um2

ADF

To study the effectiveness and performance of the proposed

control strategies, the detailed responses are numerically simulated in this section using the coupled model expressed in Eqs.
(21) and (23) in conjunction with the proposed control laws in Eqs.
(29) and (30).
The orbit parameters of the leader are shown in Table 1, and
the leader directs to the Earth which mean that the body coordinate system of the leader coincides with the orbit coordinate
system. The control objective of the follower is keeping the same
attitude and a certain distance with the leader, so that the required
relative attitude and position of the follower is qf l;d 71; 0; 0; 0,
and pf l;d 0; 10; 0m, the extern disturbance force and torque are

DFF

1
0.9
0.8
0.7

0
-20

Time (s)
Fig. 3. Time response of qf3l .

In order to avoid chattering, using saturation function replaces

sign function throughout the simulation. At the same time, for
simplicity, the proposed controller is hereafter denoted as DFF
controller, the controller presented in Ref. [15] is hereafter denoted
as ADF, and the one given in Ref. [16] is hereafter denoted as ADT.
In addition, in the simulation, the control parameters for ADF are
used as 2/3, c^ i 0:1 0:1 and ^ i 2 5; the control parameters for ADT are selected as K r 0:05I 3 , K q 0:25I 3 , K v 15I 3 ,
K 15I 3 , K i diag100; 100; 100; 100; 100; 100; 1, K f 0:8I 3
and K 0:8I 3 . Note that these controller parameters are chosen
by trial and error method to achieve the desired performance.
Figs. 2 and 3 show the time response of dual quaternion q^ f l .
Specically, Fig. 2 shows the real part ( qf l ) of q^ f l , which describes
the time response of attitude orientation, converges to [1,0,0,0]
within 400 s, and then the follower spacecraft keep the same
attitude with the leader spacecraft, and the steady-state error is
less than 3 U 103 . Fig. 3 shows the dual part (12qf l 3 pff l ) of dual
quaternion, it can be seen that under the action of DFF, it converges to [0,0,5,0] within 400 s, and the steady-state error is less
than 5 U105 . In addition, in Fig.4, it shows the time response of
the relative position (pff l ) of the follower with respect to the leader,
and one can see that pff l converge to 0;  10; 0 within 400 s under

H. Dong et al. / ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

DFF

p1 (N)

20

ADF

ADT

20

x 10

93

-3

-20
-40

15
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

0.4

s1

s2

0.2

s3

700

-0.2

s o1

-0.4

s o2

-40
-60

10

-20

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

si

si

p2 (N)

-0.8

p3 (N)

20

-1

-1.2

-20
-40

s o3

-0.6

-1.4
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Time (s)
Fig. 4. Time response of

-5

200

400

-1.6

600

200

400

600

Time(Sec)

Time(Sec)

pff l .

Fig. 7. Motion trajectories of the follower position.

0.05

1.5
DFF
ADF
ADT

(rad)

initial point

-0.05

0.5

f
u1

-0.1

f
u2

-0.15

uf (Nm)

0
-0.5
1

desired point

f
u3

-0.2
-0.25
-0.3

0.5

(rad)

0
-0.5

-0.5

0.5

1.5

-0.35
-0.4

(rad)

-0.45

Fig. 5. Motion trajectories of Euler angle.

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Time(Sec)
Fig. 8. Time response of control torque.
10
DFF
ADF
ADT

z axes (m)

0
-10

desired point

initial point

-20
-30
-40
-30
-20
-10
x axes (m)

0
10

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

y axes (m)

Figs. 5 and 6 show the motion trajectories of Euler angle and

position of the follower under different control case, respectively;
the results shows that compared with ADF and ADT, DFF avoids
oscillation and has shorter trajectories, meets the requirements of
rapidity and safety.
In addition, the time response of sliding manifold s^ is shown in
Fig. 7, and it can be found that both the real and dual part of s^
rapidly tend to the zero within 200 s, the steady error is less than
1 U 104 . The real control torque and force are shown in Figs. 8 and
9 respectively, and it can be seen that due to fault of actuators, the
amplitudes of the outputs decrease, but under the fault-tolerant
control law, the control objective is completed successfully.

Fig. 6. Motion trajectories of the follower position.

the action of DFF, and the steady-state error is less than 2 U104 m.
In general, by using the controller proposed in this paper, the
attitude and position of the follower all meet the requirements.
For purpose of comparison, Figs. 24 also show the simulation
results using ADF and ADT. It can be seen that under the inuence
of actuator faults, DFF has a much better performance with respect
to rapidity and stability compared with ADF and ADT.

6. Conclusion
An adaptive fault-tolerant control law based on dualquaternion description model is proposed for spacecraft formation proximity operations in this paper. The novelty of the proposed control strategy also lies in its robustness against inevitable
external disturbances and its independence of system parameters/
dynamics, and actuator fault tolerance. Furthermore, the closed-

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H. Dong et al. / ISA Transactions 61 (2016) 8794

4

fu1

3.5

fu2

fu3

2.5

1.5

fu (N)

1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Time (s)
Fig. 9. Time response of control force.

loop spacecraft formation system is practical nite-time stable in

sense of nite time control concept. In addition, the control
scheme can be setup effortlessly by select certain nonrestrictive
control parameters. These features make it possible to continuously maintain high-precision formation control of the
spacecraft during its entire operation, without the need for completely redesigning or reprogramming of the controller under
widely varying operation conditions. Numerical simulations to
evaluate the overall performance for fast tracking, disturbances
and uncertainties resistance, nite-time convergence and fault
toleration veried the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Acknowledgments
This work was supported partially by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Project no. 61522301, 61273175, 61174200),
Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET11-0801), Heilongjiang Province Science Foundation for Youths
(QC2012C024), and Research Fund for Doctoral Program of Higher
Education of China (20132302110028). The authors greatly
appreciate the above nancial support. The authors would also like
to thank the reviewers for their valuable comments and constructive suggestions that helped to improve the paper
signicantly.

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