Attitude Stabilization for Underactuated Spacecraft: A Piecewise Continuous Bounded Feedback Control Approach

ABSTRACT Compared with direct torque control, the torque coupling terms generated by momentum exchange devices make the attitude dynamics of underactuated spacecraft more complex and difficult to decouple. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a feedback control law for attitude stabilization of underactuated spacecraft controlled by two reaction wheels. This control law represents the first attempt to achieve attitude stabilization of wheel‐controlled underactuated spacecraft with non‐zero residual angular momentum at the kinematic level. The corresponding closed‐loop system is globally asymptotically stable, with control inputs being piecewise continuous, bounded, and asymptotically converging to zero. The effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm has been validated through numerical simulations. Furthermore, comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed controller achieves superior performance metrics, exhibiting both a simultaneous reduction in energy expenditure and accelerated attitude convergence relative to benchmark methods.