Attitude feedback control: Unconstrained and nonholonomic constrained cases

The problem is considered of asymptotically driving, the attitude of a spac ecraft via feedback control. First, a simple feedback control structure bas ed on the measure of the equivalent angle axis is determined for a fully ac tuated system. Then, the same reasoning is used to find the solution for a spacecraft operating in failure mode, that is, whenever the angular velocit y vector is constrained to lie in one of the spacecraft's coordinate planes . The basic aim is to show that with a simple choice for the attitude param eterization, a simple and effective structure for the feedback control law can be obtained.