Attitude Pointing Control using Artificial Potentials with Control Input Constraints

This paper presents a novel approach for pointing direction control of a rigid body with a body-fixed sensor, in the presence of control constraints and pointing direction constraints. This scheme relies on the use of artificial potentials where an attractive artificial potential is placed at the desired pointing direction and a repulsive artificial potential is used to avoid an undesirable pointing direction. The proposed control law ensures almost global asymptotic convergence of the rigid body to its desired pointing direction, while satisfying the control input constraints and avoiding the undesirable pointing direction. These theoretical results are followed by numerical simulation results that provide an illustration of the scheme for a realistic spacecraft pointing control scenario.