Finite-time resilient attitude coordination control for multiple rigid spacecraft with communication link faults

In this work we address the finite-time resilient attitude coordination control problem for a group of rigid spacecraft under a directed communication graph. Based on the high gain technique and the finite-time observer method, a distributed finite-time observer, where only the estimated attitudes of the leader are required to exchange among spacecraft, is designed to estimate the leader's attitude and velocity. The resilience of the distributed observer to communication link faults is proven by use of the homogeneity property. Then, a distributed finite-time attitude coordination control protocol is proposed to guarantee the finite-time convergence of the attitude tracking errors to a small neighborhood of zero. Finally, numerical studies are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the derived control law.