TY  - JOUR
AU  - Zhang, Chengxi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/21
TI  - Event-Triggered Attitude Control of Underactuated Spacecraft
JO  - Aerospace Engineering Communications
T2  - Aerospace Engineering Communications
JF  - Aerospace Engineering Communications
VL  - 1
IS  - 3
SP  - 110
EP  - 118
DO  - 10.62762/AEC.2026.732691
UR  - https://www.icck.org/article/abs/AEC.2026.732691
KW  - underactuated spacecraft
KW  - attitude control
KW  - event-triggered control
AB  - This paper presents an event-triggered attitude control method for an underactuated spacecraft with only two bounded body-axis torques. Gyroscopic coupling supplies the missing control action: two periodic angular-rate references generate the average gyroscopic rate product required to regulate the unactuated axis. A relative-plus-absolute event condition updates the bounded torque command, while a zero-order hold and a timeout provide implementable inter-event intervals. An elementary energy argument establishes asymptotic stability of the explicitly defined nominal averaged local error model, while a nonlinear simulation assesses the complete implementation. Under a 2 N$\cdot$m torque limit, an initial attitude error of $32.6^\circ$ is reduced to $0.108^\circ$ at 200 s. The event implementation performs 295 full control-law evaluations, and its completed inter-update intervals range from 0.2 to 1.0 s. This corresponds to 70.5% fewer full control-law evaluations and torque-command updates than a 5 Hz periodic implementation.
SN  - 3071-1967
PB  - Institute of Central Computation and Knowledge
LA  - English
ER  - 

@article{Zhang2026EventTrigg,
  author = {Chengxi Zhang},
  title = {Event-Triggered Attitude Control of Underactuated Spacecraft},
  journal = {Aerospace Engineering Communications},
  year = {2026},
  volume = {1},
  number = {3},
  pages = {110-118},
  doi = {10.62762/AEC.2026.732691},
  url = {https://www.icck.org/article/abs/AEC.2026.732691},
  abstract = {This paper presents an event-triggered attitude control method for an underactuated spacecraft with only two bounded body-axis torques. Gyroscopic coupling supplies the missing control action: two periodic angular-rate references generate the average gyroscopic rate product required to regulate the unactuated axis. A relative-plus-absolute event condition updates the bounded torque command, while a zero-order hold and a timeout provide implementable inter-event intervals. An elementary energy argument establishes asymptotic stability of the explicitly defined nominal averaged local error model, while a nonlinear simulation assesses the complete implementation. Under a 2 N\$\cdot\$m torque limit, an initial attitude error of \$32.6^\circ\$ is reduced to \$0.108^\circ\$ at 200 s. The event implementation performs 295 full control-law evaluations, and its completed inter-update intervals range from 0.2 to 1.0 s. This corresponds to 70.5\% fewer full control-law evaluations and torque-command updates than a 5 Hz periodic implementation.},
  keywords = {underactuated spacecraft, attitude control, event-triggered control},
  issn = {3071-1967},
  publisher = {Institute of Central Computation and Knowledge}
}