Performance comparison of active disturbance rejection control and sliding mode control in spacecraft attitude control

Considering the dynamics of spacecraft in attitude maneuver, we propose an active disturbance rejection control(ADRC) which has strong rejection ability for perturbations and disturbances. This control technique gets rid of a precise model required in traditional control methods. We have conducted the experiments of command-tracking, disturbance rejection and robustness investigation, and compared the results with those obtained from a sliding mode control(SMC) with a reaching law. The comparison shows that ADRC exhibits better dynamic performance, higher ability in disturbance rejection and stronger robustness against the parameter uncertainty and external disturbance.