Adaptive feedback linearization control of space robots

Space robots control and the advantages of controllers for these robots are active research topics. In this paper, a variety of control methods were used to control the space robots attitude to obtain time response in order to minimize the EULERINT criterion. EULERINT is in fact the time integral of the Euler angel between the body axis and the target axis over the maneuvers and thus is an interpretation of error trajectory, however control efforts have also been reviewed. First, the EULERINT criterion values were compared in the case of a PD controller applied to linear and nonlinear models using various kinematics descriptions (Euler angles, quaternion vector and direction cosine matrix). It was discovered that among the aforementioned kinematics terminologies, the quaternion exhibits the lowest value of the EULERINT criterion. Thus, the investigation of other control methods including LQR, pole placement and adaptive feedback linearization controls was conducted using the quaternion kinematics to determine which method yields the lowest EULERINT value, control effort and simulation elapsed time.