Abstract: Aiming at the spacecraft attitude maneuver control for avoiding multiple forbidden pointing regions, a spacecraft attitude control law based on the backstepping method is designed in this paper, which uses a potential function method to construct constraints. Firstly, based on the error quaternion, a general description of spacecraft’s conical forbidden pointing attitude set is built and then transformed into the convex constraints set. Secondly, based on the convex constraints set, a new convex potential function with explicit physical meaning is proposed, and the potential function only has a unique global minimum, which avoids the local minimum of the traditional potential function. Furthermore, a backstepping control law considering multiple forbidden pointing regions is designed for spacecraft attitude maneuver. Finally, the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control algorithm is proved by a typical numerical simulation.

Key words: Spacecraft, Convex potential function, Attitude control, Backstepping method