Adaptive neural fault-tolerant control for output-constrained attitude tracking of unmanned space vehicles

The challenging problem of attitude tracking control for unmanned space vehicles (USVs) subject to actuator faults and output constraints is addressed in this study. A novel adaptive neural fault-tolerant controller is proposed by integrating the neural networks (NNs) and barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) with the backstepping technique. Two NNs are adopted to approximate the uncertain nonlinear terms caused by unknown attitude dynamics and actuator faults, respectively. Moreover, the BLF is introduced to tackle the output constraints. It is strictly proved that all the closed-loop error signals are uniformly ultimately bounded under the proposed controller. Totally, the proposed adaptive neural fault-tolerant controller has the following two distinctive features. (1) The proposed controller is model-free and can still be applicable even when the USV attitude dynamic model is completely unknown in advance. (2) The proposed controller can guarantee the attitude tracking error always within the predefined output constraints even in the presence of actuator faults and thus ensuring safety. Finally, the excellent tracking performance of the proposed controller is verified through numerical simulations and comparisons.