The application provides a simplified attitude distribution cooperative control method for a directed communication leader-follower
spacecraft formation, which comprises the following steps: firstly, describing the simplified attitude motion of the
spacecraft in a unit
celestial coordinate system, and converting the simplified attitude motion into a translation of the
terminal point of a pointing vector on a unit
celestial sphere; secondly, designing a distributed cooperative
virtual control quantity under a directed communication topology according to the consistency theory, so as to ensure that the pointing vector of the follower
spacecraft converges to a fixed pointing direction in the inertial space determined by the pointing vector of the leader spacecraft, and then calculating an ideal
angular velocity vector of the follower spacecraft according to the
virtual control quantity; thirdly, taking the difference between the
angular velocity vector of the follower spacecraft and the ideal
angular velocity vector as a sliding mode variable, and designing a sliding mode surface; and finally, designing a distributed cooperative control law for the follower spacecraft based on a super-twisting second-order
sliding mode control method. The application can ensure that the pointing vector of the follower spacecraft in the directed communication formation converges to the pointing vector of the leader spacecraft fixed in the inertial space under a disturbance environment, and reduces the communication amount of the formation.