Fast fixed-time extended state observer based command filtering backstepping control of free-flying flexible-joint space robots

System parameter perturbations, external disturbances, and input saturation issues seriously affect the on-orbit operation precision and rapid response capabilities of the free-flying flexible- joint space robots (FFSR). To this end, a fixed-time extended state observer (ESO) based non-singular command filtering backstepping controller is proposed. The fast fixed-time ESO is designed to estimate the parameter perturbations and external disturbances. To avoid the "computational explosion" caused by multiple derivatives of the virtual control law in backstepping control, a second-order command filter is employed to obtain the derivative of virtual control laws. Meanwhile, to reduce the filtering errors induced by the command filter, a non-singular fixed-time filtering error compensation algorithm is developed. Furthermore, considering the constraints of control moment gyroscope (CMG) and joint motors, an anti- saturation compensation algorithm is introduced to drive the system out of the saturated region rapidly, thus reducing actuator saturation effects on the control system performance. Theoretical analysis shows the proposed controller can ensure the system tracking error converges to any arbitrarily small neighborhood of the origin within fixed time. Simulation results demonstrate that the designed non-singular fixed-time command filtering backstepping controller exhibits fast convergence speed and high tracking accuracy.