Constrained attitude maneuvers on SO(3): Rotation space sampling, planning and low-level control

In this paper, we propose a novel framework that provides a systematic strategy to regulate the rigid body attitude on SO(3) within a generic constrained attitude zone. The proposed control scheme consists of three components: sampling, planning and low-level control. Specifically, an overlapping cell-like sampling for the attitude configuration space SO(3) is built and further reformulated to a graph model. Based on this abstraction, a complete graph search algorithm is utilized to generate a feasible path in the graph model. Both sufficient and necessary conditions on finding a feasible path are presented. Furthermore, to facilitate the control design, the point-to-point path is transformed into a smooth reference trajectory along the geodesics. Finally, a saturated low-level control law is formulated to robustly track the desired trajectory. Simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control approach.QC 20200218