Output feedback attitude maneuver control of satellite using rotation matrix

An output-feedback attitude maneuver control strategy in the absence of angular velocity feedback is proposed for rigid satellite system by solely and directly using unit-length vector measurements. The orientation of a rigid body is described by a rotation matrix directly, rather than by a parameterization, avoiding the undesirable singular problem and unwinding phenomenon caused by Euler angle, quaternion or the modified Rodrigues parameters (MRPs) representations of the attitude. A new orientation error of the rigid body is computed by the vector measurements and a set of desired vector measurements. By using the lead filter, the velocity-free attitude maneuver control law that ensures set-point regulation is developed. Within the Lyapunov framework, the global stability of the close-loop system is guaranteed. Numerical simulation results demonstrate the successful set-point regulation of the proposed output-feedback control strategy.