High-order sliding mode attitude controller design for reentry flight

A novel high-order sliding mode control strategy is proposed for the attitude control problem of reentry vehicles in the presence of parametric uncertainties and external disturbances, which results in the robust and accurate tracking of the aerodynamic angle commands with the finite time convergence. The proposed control strategy is developed on the basis of integral sliding mode philosophy, which combines conventional sliding mode control and a linear quadratic regulator over a finite time interval with a free-final-state and allows the finite-time establishment of a high-order sliding mode. Firstly, a second-order sliding mode attitude controller is designed in the proposed high-order siding mode control framework. Then, to address the control chattering problem, a virtual control is introduced in the control design and hence a third-order sliding mode attitude controller is developed, leading to the chattering reduction as well as the control accuracy improvement. Finally, simulation examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.