Spacecraft Formation Flying Using Sliding Mode Control With Nonsingular Terminal Sliding Surface

A novel nonsingular terminal sliding mode control algorithm is presented for spacecraft formation. The system under consideration is assumed to be subjected to model uncertainty and exogenous disturbance. The presented controller yields finite time convergence to the sliding surface and the state, and the magnitude of the control input is only designed to be larger than the uncertainty in the dynamics. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the developed control algorithm.