Search

An adaptive sliding mode fault‐tolerant control strategy is proposed for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle in this article to accommodate actuator faults and model uncertainties. First, a new reaching law is proposed, with which a sliding mode control (SMC) law is constructed. The proposed reaching law is made up of a sliding variable and the distance between it and a designated boundary layer, and it can effectively suppress the unexpected control chattering while preserving the necessary system tracking performance. Then, an adaptive SMC scheme is proposed to further solve the fault and uncertainty compensation problem. The proposed adaptation law helps to prevent overestimation of the adaptive control parameters, as well as avoiding control chattering. Finally, a number of comparative simulation tests are carried out to validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control strategy. The demonstrated quantitative comparison results confirm its advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a safety control scheme for quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to counteract ground effect and blade damage. The impacts of ground effect and blade damage are quantitatively analyzed in the established model. The proposed safety control scheme consists of position and attitude loops. Specifically, a proportional and derivative controller is designed as a baseline control with acceleration feedforward in the position loop. A disturbance observer (DO) using the measured Euler angles is exploited to estimate the lumped disturbance forces. The developed DO can effectively mitigate the estimation deviation caused by the angle tracking error. Subsequently, differential flatness theory is used to obtain the Euler angle references and the derivatives. In the attitude loop, sliding mode control and fixed-time sliding mode observer (SMO) are integrated to deal with ground effect and blade damage promptly. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed safety control scheme, flight experiments are carried out, where the quadrotor UAV flies close to the rugged ground in the presence of blade damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the presence of unintended actuator faults and external disturbances increases the risk of a crash. Although plenty of efforts have been devoted, how to integrate capability analysis into safety control design is still an open issue. This article presents the design of a safety control system for quadrotor UAVs. Firstly, a system capability analysis method based on a differential flatness algorithm is developed, so that the derivatives (i.e., velocity, jerk, and snap) of flight trajectory can be formulated as flat variables. A tradeoff between system capability and permissible flight maneuverability is made to avoid actuator saturation. Secondly, dual-loop nonlinear disturbance observers are exploited to identify the actuator faults and disturbances, which can thereby be handled by a cascade control scheme. Moreover, the trajectory is regenerated online at the expense of degraded flight maneuverability or even emergency landing, in view of the remaining actuator control authority. When comparing to the existing methods, the gap among safety control, trajectory generation, and system capability analysis is bridged to ameliorate practical flight safety. Finally, flight tests are carried out to demonstrate the unique merits of the proposed system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a fractional-order intelligent fault-tolerant synchronization tracking control (FO-I-FTSTC) scheme for multiple unmanned airships (UAs) against actuator faults. Within the developed control architecture, fixed-time prescribed performance functions (PPFs) are first designed to transform the synchronization tracking errors into a new set of error variables, such that the original errors are strictly confined within the prescribed bounds. Then, fractional calculus and sliding mode surface are sequentially introduced to construct the FO errors. Moreover, to handle the unknown terms and bias faults in the FO sliding-mode error dynamics, fuzzy neural networks with recurrent loops are artfully constructed to act as the intelligent learning units. Furthermore, the norm of the loss-of-effectiveness fault factors is introduced for each UA to reduce the number of adaptive parameters. The distinct feature of the proposed method is that the FO-I-FTSTC performance is significantly enhanced by integrating recurrent fuzzy neural networks, fractional calculus, and fixed-time PPFs into a unified framework, leading to a high-precision control scheme. It is shown by Lyapunov analysis that all UAs can track their desired references in a synchronized manner, and the synchronization tracking errors are bounded and strictly confined within the prescribed error bounds. Comparative hardware-in-the-loop experiments are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed FO-I-FTSTC scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates a distributed fractional-order fault-tolerant formation-containment control (FOFTFCC) scheme for networked unmanned airships (UAs) to achieve safe observation of a smart city. In the proposed control method, an interval type-2 fuzzy neural network (IT2FNN) is first developed for each UA to approximate the unknown term associated with the loss-of-effectiveness faults in the distributed error dynamics, and then a disturbance observer (DO) is proposed to compensate for the approximation error and bias fault encountered by each UA, such that the composite learning strategy composed of the IT2FNN and the DO is obtained for each UA. Moreover, fractional-order (FO) calculus is incorporated into the control scheme to provide an extra degree of freedom for the parameter adjustments. The salient feature of the proposed control scheme is that the composite learning algorithm and FO calculus are integrated to achieve a satisfactory fault-tolerant formation-containment control performance even when a portion of leader/follower UAs is subjected to the actuator faults in a distributed communication network. Furthermore, it is shown by Lyapunov stability analysis that all leader UAs can track the virtual leader UA with time-varying offset vectors, and all follower UAs can converge into the convex hull spanned by the leader UAs. Finally, comparative hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experimental results are presented to show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a single‐hidden‐layer feedforward network (SLFN) aided fault‐tolerant control (FTC) scheme for a class of nonlinear systems subject to actuator faults. First, the upper bounds of the norms of the unknown functions, which cover information of actuator faults and amplitude saturation degrees, are deployed. The upper bounds are approximated by SLFNs with adaptive techniques. Subsequently, a sliding mode control approach is presented to allow for prompt corrective reactions, with explicit consideration of multivariable conditions and control input constraints. Finally, simulation results based on a nonlinear Boeing 747 aircraft model are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed FTC scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the decentralized fractional-order fault-tolerant control problem for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against wind disturbances and actuator faults in a directed communication network. A new composite adaptive disturbance observer-based decentralized fractional-order fault-tolerant control (CADOB-DFO-FTC) scheme, which incorporates fractional-order (FO) sliding-mode surfaces, nonlinear disturbance observers (NDOs), fuzzy wavelet neural networks (FWNNs), and robust controllers, is developed to achieve the attitude tracking control of networked UAVs in a decentralized way. Based on the FO sliding-mode surfaces, the NDOs are first developed to estimate the lumped uncertainties due to the aerodynamic parameter perturbations, wind disturbances, and actuator faults. Then, adaptive FWNNs with updating weighting matrices, mean vectors, and deviation vectors are constructed to effectively attenuate the adverse effects induced by the NDO estimation errors. Furthermore, to compensate the FWNN approximation errors, robust controllers are integrated into the developed control scheme to enhance the approximation abilities. It is shown that by using Lyapunov methods, all UAVs can track their attitude references. Finally, comparative simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a fixed-time accommodation strategy of actuator faults for hypersonic gliding vehicles (HGVs). The approach against actuator faults is incorporated by sliding mode control (SMC), bilimit homogeneity, and adaptive techniques, with consideration of practical constraints and model uncertainties. The resulting fault-tolerant attitude control law allows the fault compensation to be completed in a fixed time, in view of the limited time available for recovery of a faulty HGV. The effectiveness of the presented scheme is validated by comparing it to the finite-time fault accommodation scheme. Note to Practitioners—Hypersonic vehicles have drawn significant interests due to the features of super-fast and flexible maneuverability. The use of advanced fault-tolerant control (FTC) techniques is expected to guarantee safety during hypersonic vehicle operation. A challenging problem is how to counteract actuator faults promptly and effectively in the presence of practical constraints and model uncertainties. This article presents a fixed-time FTC algorithm for a hypersonic gliding vehicle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fault-tolerant formation control (FTFC) strategy is proposed against severe actuator faults, applied to a team of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs). In the beginning, a team of WMRs is operating in a prescribed formation topology. As long as the robot(s) cannot complete the required mission due to severe actuator faults, the formation is reconfigured for the healthy WMRs to eliminate the fault effects. The new reconfiguration is determined by means of an optimal assignment scheme so that each healthy robot can be assigned to a unique position. Subsequently, each robot starts planning its trajectory to reach its new position in the new formation configuration by virtue of a hybrid genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization (GA–PSO). As metaheuristic optimization techniques, such as GA and PSO, are unable to solve the optimization problem with continuous control inputs, control parameterization and time discretization (CPTD) method is, therefore, adopted to offer an approximate piecewise linearization of the control inputs. Thus, an approach with the integration of CPTD and GA–PSO is developed. This integrated approach enables that the time of achieving the configuration is minimized, while the physical constraints of WMRs and collision avoidance are explicitly considered. Finally, real-time experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared with other optimization techniques, such as GA and PSO. Note to Practitioners—Cooperative unmanned systems have drawn significant interests in military and civilian applications. During missions’ execution, it is of great importance for cooperative unmanned systems to have fault-tolerance capabilities for achieving the desired mission when faults occur in one or more team members. A challenging problem is how to detect and isolate the fault and how to mitigate the fault effects on the whole mission. This article presents a fault-tolerant formation control strategy in the case of severe actuator fault occurrence in a team of wheeled mobile robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sizes of wind turbines have been steadily increasing over the past decade, especially on offshore sites. The greater structural flexibility of such machines necessitates the development of reliable load mitigation techniques to alleviate the effects of asymmetric wind loads and fatigue. Given the importance of such techniques, this article proposes a reliable load mitigation scheme, referred to as “fault-tolerant individual pitch control,” for individually adjusting the pitch angle of wind turbine blades in the presence of blade pitch actuator faults. The proposed scheme consists of a collective pitch control augmented with an individual pitch control, and a fault detection and diagnosis system. Simulation results using an offshore wind turbine illustrate the effectiveness as well as fault-tolerance capability of the developed scheme compared to controlling the pitch angles collectively. The developed scheme not only ensures an almost equal output power with reduced loads on the turbine, but also tolerates the effects of possible faults in pitch actuators of the blades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current maritime applications have yielded strong demands for the development of advanced unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) with more reliable path following capabilities to greatly extend mission durations and enhance accommodative capabilities of USVs to more hazardous and dynamic environments. This paper presents an adaptive path following control method using a retrofit adaptive tracking control technique with application to a USV with consideration of environmental disturbances (like winds, waves, and currents), while taking into account of the system constraints of USVs, including both turning features (turning rate limit and turning dynamics) and rudder operation constraints (rudder deflection and rate saturation, and its dynamics). In order to guarantee the satisfactory performance of the USV operating in a calm environment, a baseline state feedback tracking controller considering the characteristics of yaw rate and rudder operations, and USV steering and actuator dynamics is first designed. In the presence of time-varying environmental disturbances, a retrofit adaptive disturbance compensating control mechanism is then developed based on the disturbance amplitude estimated from an indirect adaptive disturbance estimator. Finally, a reconfigurable adaptive path following controller is synthesized by combining the baseline controller and the adaptive disturbance compensating mechanism for the proper operation of the USV in the presence of environmental disturbances, while the desired path is successfully followed by the USV within an acceptable deviation boundary and without violating constraints of turning rates as well as amplitude and rate of rudder deflections. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed path following control methodology, both numerical simulations on a nonlinear USV model and field experiments on a real-size USV are conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary An adaptive sliding mode observer (SMO)–based fault‐tolerant control method taking into consideration of actuator saturation is proposed for a hypersonic scramjet vehicle (HSV) under a class of time‐varying actuator faults. The SMO is designed to robustly estimate the HSV states and reconstruct the fault signals. The adaptive technique is integrated into the SMO to approximate the unknown bounds of system uncertainties, actuator faults, and estimation errors. The robust SMO synthesis condition, which can be formulated as a set of linear matrix inequalities, is improved by relaxing structure constraints to the Lyapunov matrix. An anti‐windup feedback control law, which utilizes the estimated HSV states and the fault signals, is designed to counteract the negative effects of actuator saturation induced by actuator faults. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach can guarantee stability and maintain L2 performance of the closed‐loop system in the presence of HSV actuator faults and saturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper presents a retrofit fault‐tolerant tracking control (FTTC) design method with application to an unmanned quadrotor helicopter (UQH). The proposed retrofit fault‐tolerant tracking controller is developed to accommodate loss‐of‐effectiveness faults in the actuators of UQH. First, a state feedback tracking controller acting as the normal controller is designed to guarantee the stability and satisfactory performance of UQH in the absence of actuator faults, while actuator dynamics of UQH are also considered in the controller design. Then, a retrofit control mechanism with integration of an adaptive fault estimator and an adaptive fault compensator is devised against the adverse effects of actuator faults. Next, the proposed retrofit FTTC strategy, which is synthesized by the normal controller and an additional reconfigurable fault compensating mechanism, takes over the control of the faulty UQH to asymptotically stabilize the closed‐loop system with an acceptable performance degradation in the presence of actuator faults. Finally, both numerical simulations and practical experiments are conducted in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed FTTC methodology on the asymptotic convergence of tracking error for several combinations of loss‐of‐effectiveness faults in actuators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a difficult problem of distributed fault-tolerant cooperative control for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the presence of actuator faults and input saturation. To eliminate the “explosion of complexity” in the traditional backstepping architecture, the dynamic surface control is utilized to construct the distributed fault-tolerant control scheme. Moreover, by using the disturbance observer technique, actuator faults and external disturbances are estimated as lumped uncertainties. Furthermore, to reduce the adverse influence caused by the control input saturation of UAVs, auxiliary dynamic systems are introduced to regulate the control signals when the input signals are saturated for a long time. The key feature is that the proposed fault-tolerant cooperative controller is designed based on the local information of neighboring UAVs and the factors including actuator faults, input saturation, and external disturbances are simultaneously addressed. It is shown by Lyapunov approach and graph theory that the synchronization tracking stability can be guaranteed and all follower UAVs can track the leader UAV. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is further validated by numerical simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief investigates the high-precision trajectory tracking control of space manipulator after capturing an unknown target. The neutral uncertainty induced by parameter variation poses great challenges to the controller design. Moreover, the existence of actuator deadzone nonlinearity makes the situation more complicated. In order to address the aforementioned difficulties, a novel control scheme is proposed in this brief. First, to reduce the conservativeness in the descriptions of uncertainties, the dynamic of space manipulator is described by an uncertain system with neutral uncertainty, state-dependent uncertainty, and norm-bounded uncertainty for the first time. Then, by incorporating a novel deadzone compensation control effort, a composite controller is proposed to attenuate these uncertainties and compensate the deadzone nonlinearity. Finally, stability and robustness analyses are carried out, and simulation results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an average dwell-time method for fault-tolerant control of a class of uncertain switched linear time-delay systems and also designs an algorithm to determine the parameters pertaining to the dwell-time condition. Compared to the literature results, this paper features the following: 1) the proposed method is independent of switching polices if switchings are slow enough in the average sense; 2) the proposed control design guarantees exponential stabilization of this class of time-delay linear systems with actuator faults; and 3) this method treats all actuators in a unified manner without a need to identify which are faulty or healthy actuators. The proposed method is applied to the water pollution control problem, for the first time, to deal with different ratios of stream flow rates to effluent flow rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a fault-tolerant aircraft control (FTAC) scheme against actuator faults. First, the upper bounds of the norms of the unknown functions are introduced, which contain actuator faults and model uncertainties. Subsequently, self-constructing fuzzy neural networks (SCFNNs) with adaptive laws are capable of obtaining the bounds. The bound estimation can reduce the computational burden with a lower amount of rules and weights, rather than the dynamic matrix approximation. Moreover, with the aid of SCFNNs, a multivariable sliding mode control (SMC) is developed to guarantee the finite-time stability of the handicapped aircraft. As compared to the existing intelligent FTAC techniques, the proposed method has twofold merits: fault accommodation can be promptly accomplished and decoupled difficulties can be overcome. Finally, simulation results from the nonlinear longitudinal Boeing 747 aircraft model illustrate the capability of the presented FTAC scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When faults of some flight actuators have occurred, an unexpected need to use larger magnitudes and higher actuation rates of fault-free actuators is often caused if fault-tolerance design is not considered. This paper presents a fault-tolerant flight control (FTFC) capable of accommodating aircraft actuator failures while respecting to the physical control authority of healthy actuators, on the basis of sliding mode (SM) and adaptive techniques. Furthermore, this paper accounts for the availability of the measured angular rate. In the presence of reliable gyro onboard, the sensed pitch rate can be applied to the developed FTFC loop. In the absence of pitch rate measurement, a SM observer (SMO) is exploited to recover the pitch rate information, while the integrated design of the SMO and FTFC is investigated. Simulation studies of a nonlinear Boeing 747 longitudinal model are conducted to manifest the effectiveness of the proposed schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper investigates the attitude stabilization problem of spacecraft subject to external disturbances and actuator saturation. A novel attitude control scheme is technically proposed by incorporating the Nussbaum gain technique into backstepping design. The key idea behind this is to introduce a special Nussbaum‐type function in order to compensate for the time‐varying nonlinear terms arising from input saturation. By exploiting the dynamic surface control technique, the problem of “explosion of terms” inherent in traditional backstepping designs is effectively eliminated and the computational burden is significantly reduced. Additionally, based on the selected Nussbaum‐type function, a constructive analysis methodology is presented, which plays an important role in analyzing the stability properties of the closed‐loop system. It is then proved that the proposed control scheme can guarantee the boundedness of all closed‐loop signals. Furthermore, the unwinding phenomenon is given a simple and effective remedy by resorting to suitable choices of the attitude error variable and the virtual control law. Finally, simulation experiments are carried out to assess the effectiveness and demonstrate the advantages of the proposed control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel adaptive sliding-mode-based control allocation scheme for accommodating simultaneous actuator faults. The proposed control scheme includes two separate control modules with virtual control part and control allocation part, respectively. As a low-level control module, the control allocation/reallocation scheme is used to distribute/redistribute virtual control signals among the available actuators under fault-free or faulty conditions, respectively. In the case of simultaneous actuator faults, the control allocation and reallocation module may fail to meet the required virtual control signal, which will degrade the overall system stability. The proposed online adaptive scheme can seamlessly adjust the control gains for the high-level sliding mode control module and reconfigure the distribution of control signals to eliminate the effect of the virtual control error and maintain the stability of the closed-loop system. In addition, with the help of the boundary layer for constructing the adaptation law, the overestimation of control gains is avoided, and the adaptation ceases once the sliding variable is within the boundary layer. A significant feature of this study is that the stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed theoretically in the presence of simultaneous actuator faults. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is demonstrated by experimental results based on a modified unmanned multirotor helicopter under both single and simultaneous actuator faults conditions with comparison to a conventional sliding mode controller and a linear quadratic regulator scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a fault-tolerant control (FTC) scheme for a hypersonic gliding vehicle to counteract actuator faults and model uncertainties. Starting from the kinematic and aerodynamic models of the hypersonic vehicle, the control-oriented model subject to actuator faults is built. The observers are designed to estimate the information of actuator faults and model uncertainties, and to guarantee the estimation errors for converging to zero in fixed settling time. Subsequently, the finite-time multivariable terminal sliding mode control and composite-loop design are pursued to enable integration into the FTC, which can ensure the safety of the postfault vehicle in a timely manner. Simulation studies of a six degree-of-freedom nonlinear model of the hypersonic gliding vehicle are carried out to manifest the effectiveness of the investigated FTC system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This brief investigates fault-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) strategies for multiple differentially driven autonomous wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) in the presence of actuator faults during formation operation. First, for normal/fault-free cases and for preparation to the faults occurrence cases, an integrated approach combining input-output feedback linearization and distributed linear model predictive control techniques is designed and implemented on a team of WMRs to accomplish a formation task. Second, when actuator faults occur in one of the robots of the team, two cases are explicitly considered: 1) if the faulty robot cannot complete its assigned task due to a severe fault, then the faulty robot has to get out from the formation mission, and an FTCC strategy is designed such that the tasks of the WMRs team are reassigned to the remaining healthy robots to complete the mission with graceful performance degradation and 2) if the faulty robot can continue the mission with degraded performance, then the other team members reconfigure their controllers considering the capability of the faulty robot. Thus, the FTCC strategy is designed to re-coordinate the motion of each robot in the team. Within the proposed scheme, a fault detection and diagnosis unit using a two-stage Kalman filter to detect and diagnose actuator faults is presented. Then, the FTCC problem is formulated as an optimal assignment problem, where a Hungarian algorithm is applied. Moreover, a collision avoidance algorithm based on mechanical impedance principle is proposed to avoid the potential collision between the healthy robots and the faulty ones. Formation operation of the robot team is based on a leader-follower approach, while the control algorithm is implemented in a distributed manner. The results of real experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed FTCC scheme in different fault scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a fault-tolerant control (FTC) strategy for a hypersonic gliding vehicle (HGV) subject to actuator malfunctions and model uncertainties. The control-oriented model of the HGV is established according to the HGV kinematic and aerodynamic models. A composite-loop design for HGV FTC under actuator faults is subsequently developed, where newly developed multivariable integral terminal sliding-mode control (TSMC) and adaptive techniques are integrated. The multivariable integral TSMC is capable of ensuring the finite-time stability of the closed-loop system in the presence of actuator malfunctions and model uncertainties, while the adaptive laws are employed to tune the control parameters in response to the HGV status. Simulation studies based on a six-degree-of-freedom nonlinear model of the HGV are illustrated to highlight the effectiveness of the developed FTC scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an adaptive fault-tolerant flight control (FTFC) scheme to counteract actuator stuck failures, where the issues on saturation avoidance of redundant actuators and finite-time adaptation of FTFC are addressed. The “positive $\mu $ -modification” technique and the adjustable reference model are exploited for preventing redundant actuators from saturation or secondary damage. In addition, the integration of the auxiliary integrated regressor matrix ensures that the FTFC law is determined within a finite amount of time. Therefore, the accommodation process of actuator stuck failures can be facilitated. Numerical simulation studies based on the nonlinear aircraft models are illustrated to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies a robust fault tolerant control of a class of nonlinear switched systems with strong structural uncertainties and actuator faults. This paper presents a new robust fault tolerant state feedback method, by using the average dwell time technique to stabilize the switched nonlinear systems exponentially under an arbitrary switching law. Comparing with the existing results, the method of this paper has three features: (1) this method is applicable to the switched nonlinear systems with strong structural uncertainties and faulty actuators and also the nominal case of the considered systems, there is no need to change any structures and/or parameters of the controller. (2) The switching law is arbitrary provided that the average switching is slow enough in the average sense. (3) This method treats all actuators in the same way, no need to separate faulty actuators from the healthy ones. The simulation result verifies the effectiveness of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an adaptive reconfiguration control for linear systems with both unknown actuator failures and disturbances. The model uncertainties are included to present additive disturbances which are unknown but bounded. By using set-membership estimation technique for such a problem, two interval observers are developed to estimate the system states subject to model uncertainties. Based on these state estimates, an adaptive state feedback reconfiguration controller is proposed to compensate actuator failures for achieving system states tracking to those of reference model under the framework of model reference adaptive control approach. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through simulation results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fault-tolerant control approach without rate sensors is presented for the attitude stabilization of a satellite being developed. External disturbances, reaction wheel faults, actuator saturation, and unavailable angular velocity are addressed. A sliding-mode observer is proposed by using attitude feedback only, and the unavailable angular velocity is estimated by this observer in finite time. Using the attitude and the estimated velocity, another sliding-mode observer is proposed to reconstruct actuator faults and disturbances. It is proven that reconstruction with zero observer error is achieved in finite time. With the reconstructed value, a velocity-free controller is then developed to asymptotically stabilize the attitude. Simulation results are also provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wind turbines are designed to generate electrical energy as efficiently and reliably as possible. Advanced fault detection, diagnosis, and accommodation schemes are necessary to realize the required levels of reliability and availability in modern wind turbines. This paper presents two novel approaches oriented to the design of fault-tolerant control (FTC) schemes for reliable regulation of generator torque in a wind turbine that can be affected by both model uncertainties and actuator faults in its generator/converter. The first approach is based on fuzzy model reference adaptive control in which a fuzzy inference mechanism is used for parameter adaptation without any explicit knowledge of the potential faults in the system. The second approach exploits fuzzy modeling and identification method to develop an integrated model-based fault detection and diagnosis, and automatic signal correction mechanism to accommodate potential faults in the system based on online diagnostic information. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed FTC schemes is illustrated and compared by a series of simulations on a well-known large offshore wind turbine benchmark in the presence of wind turbulences, measurement noises, and realistic fault scenarios in the generator/converter torque actuator. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A finite-time attitude tracking control scheme is presented for rigid spacecraft subject to constant but unknown inertia and external disturbances. The controller, developed using sliding mode control technique, has great fault-tolerant capability to accommodate four types of actuator faults. Different from most of the existing works on attitude fault-tolerant control (FTC), the developed controller guarantees the desired attitude to be followed in finite time, which is critical for FTC systems. Moreover, the convergence time is an explicit parameter for designer’s choice. Thus, the controller design simply meets the finite-time requirement. The attitude-tracking performance is evaluated through a numerical example. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a methodology for designing an effective fault-tolerant controller (FTC) through the combination of three control techniques: linear parameter varying (LPV), model reference adaptive control (MRAC), and a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. The proposed FTC is tested in a diesel engine generator (DEG), operating as a master generation unit in an autonomous hybrid wind-diesel power system with a battery storage system (BSS). The control objectives are to regulate voltage and frequency of the DEG and to ensure covering the demand load. Frequency regulation is achieved with the help of an MRAC-LPV scheme combining a PID controller tuned by a genetic algorithm (GA) for maintaining the speed of the diesel engine (DE) in a constant value, and in consequence the frequency of the grid. Voltage magnitude control is performed through a constrained variation of the field voltage of the synchronous generator through a classic MRAC. Different operating conditions of the hybrid power system are applied in order to test the controller's robustness: (i) steady-state operation; (ii) sudden connection of a load of 0.5 MW; (iii) a three-phase fault with duration of 0.5 s; and (iv) DE's actuator fault with six different magnitudes. An improved performance is achieved by the proposed scheme over a baseline controller, IEEE type 1 AVR for voltage regulation and a governor with PI controller for frequency regulation. Dynamic models of the microgrid components are presented, and the proposed microgrid and its FTC are implemented and tested in the Simpower Systems of MATLAB/Simulink simulation environment. The simulation results showed that the use of an LPV methodology for designing the MRAC allows the online accommodation of different fault magnitudes in the DE actuator and improves the FTC system performance in comparison with the baseline controller. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an adaptive fault-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) scheme for networked unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the presence of actuator faults and wind effects by artfully introducing fractional order calculus, proportional–integral–derivative (PID), and recurrent neural networks. Fractional order sliding-mode surface and PID-type error mapping are first utilized to transform the synchronization tracking errors of all UAVs into a new set of errors. Then, based on these newly constructed errors, an FTCC scheme is developed to synchronously track their references. Moreover, Butterworth low-pass filter (BLF) and recurrent neural network (RNN) learning strategies are assimilated to handle the unknown terms induced by the actuator faults and wind effects. Finally, theoretical analysis and comparative hardware-in-the-loop experimental demonstrations have shown the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a new finite-time fault-tolerant control (FTC) using a fractional-order backstepping iterative design strategy for a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the presence of actuator faults and input saturation. To compensate for the lumped disturbance induced by the actuator faults, a neural network disturbance observer (NNDO) with finite-time observation capability is first developed as the fault diagnostic unit. Then, based on the diagnosed fault information, fractional-order (FO) calculus is artfully utilized to enhance the FTC performance within the backstepping design architecture. The salient feature of the developed control scheme is that the finite-time NNDO and FO calculus are simultaneously used to significantly increase the FTC performance against unexpected actuator faults. Moreover, to address the input saturation problem, the faulty UAV dynamics is augmented by a new auxiliary system. Furthermore, a Nussbaum function is incorporated into the FTC scheme to further avoid the calculation of the inverse gain matrix involved within the auxiliary system. It is shown by Lyapunov analysis that the tracking errors are convergent in finite time. Finally, comparative simulations are conducted to show the effectiveness of the developed FTC scheme. Some hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experimental results are illustrated to further demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed finite-time fractional-order fault-tolerant control (FTFOFTC) method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concurrent occurrences of actuator faults and wind effects can significantly threaten the flight safety of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (multi-UAVs). To address this difficult control problem against actuator faults and wind effects, a composite decentralized fractional-order (FO) backstepping adaptive neural fault-tolerant control (FTC) method is presented for the attitude synchronization tracking of multi-UAVs, which is integrated with neural networks (NNs), disturbance observers (DOs), FO calculus, and high-order sliding-mode differentiators (HOSMDs). The distinctive feature of this work is addressing the attitude synchronization tracking control problem with actuator faults and wind effects in a decentralized framework and proposing a composite approximation method for multi-UAVs. It is shown that by using Lyapunov methods the synchronization tracking control is achieved even when multi-UAVs simultaneously encounter wind effects and actuator faults. Comparative simulation results illustrate the theoretical feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the close formation flight, the wake vortex induced by the leading aircraft will have adverse effects on the safe flight of the trailing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Hence, this paper investigates a difficult problem of safe control for the trailing UAV against actuator faults, input saturation, and wake vortex effect. By using disturbance observers, external wake vortex, disturbances, and internal actuator faults are estimated. Then, with the help of estimated knowledge of disturbance, backstepping control laws are developed for the longitudinal dynamics and the lateral-directional dynamics, respectively. One of the key features of the proposed strategy is that, the inherent problem, i.e., “explosion of complexity” in conventional backstepping control, is solved by the presented dynamic surface control scheme. Another key feature is that external wake vortex, disturbances, and internal actuator faults, input saturation are simultaneously considered. It is shown by Lyapunov stability analysis that the closed-loop system is uniformly ultimately bounded with safety requirements guaranteed even in the presence of wake vortex and actuator faults. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is further validated by simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an active fault-tolerant control strategy for a quadrotor helicopter against actuator faults and model uncertainties while explicitly considering fault estimation errors based on adaptive sliding mode control and recurrent neural networks. Firstly, a novel adaptive sliding mode control is proposed. In virtue of the proposed adaptive schemes, the system tracking performance can be guaranteed in the presence of model uncertainties without stimulating control chattering. Then, due to the fact that model-based fault estimation schemes may fail to correctly estimate fault magnitudes in the presence of model uncertainties, a fault estimation scheme is proposed by designing a parallel bank of recurrent neural networks. With the trained networks, the severity of actuator faults can be precisely estimated. Finally, by synthesizing the proposed fault estimation scheme with the developed adaptive sliding mode control, an active fault-tolerant control mechanism is established. Moreover, the issue of actuator fault estimation error is explicitly considered and compensated by the proposed adaptive sliding mode control. The effectiveness of the proposed active fault-tolerant control strategy is validated through real experiments based on a quadrotor helicopter subject to actuator faults and model uncertainties. Its advantages are demonstrated in comparison with a model-based fault estimator and a conventional adaptive sliding mode control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • This paper explores the adaptive fault-tolerant control of quadrotor helicopters. • Actuator faults, parametric uncertainties, and disturbances can be all compensated. • With the aid of proposed adaptive schemes, control chattering problem is avoided. Abstract This paper presents a disturbance observer-based adaptive sliding mode control (SMC) strategy for a quadrotor helicopter subject to multiple actuator faults, parametric uncertainties, and external disturbances. Unlike most of the existing control strategies for quadrotor helicopters, actuator faults, parametric uncertainties, and external disturbances can be simultaneously compensated within the proposed control scheme. Firstly, by employing the adaptive control parameters in both continuous and discontinuous control parts, the proposed control strategy can generate appropriate control signals to accommodate actuator faults and parametric uncertainties without merely relying on the robust discontinuous control strategy of SMC. Then, a nonlinear disturbance observer is designed and integrated to attenuate external disturbances while keeping the small value of the discontinuous control gain of SMC. In addition, the stability analysis of the proposed control strategy is given, showing that the presented controller can ensure system tracking performance and make the tracking errors arbitrarily small under the concerned situation. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated through comparative numerical simulations and experimental tests of a quadrotor helicopter under different faulty and uncertain scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the fault-tolerant control (FTC) problem for full-state error constrained attitude tracking of an uncertain spacecraft. The existing FTC solutions to this problem generally rely on an uniform strong controllability (USC) assumption that may not hold in the presence of multiplicative actuator faults. In this work, a sufficient condition for the USC assumption is presented to help evaluate the applicability of existing FTC solutions. Then, based on the unified error transformation method and symmetric barrier Lyapunov functions, a saturated adaptive robust FTC algorithm is proposed, which can eliminate the USC assumption without requiring the multiplicative actuator faults to be differentiable, while ensuring that (i) full-state error constraints are never violated; (ii) all closed-loop signals are bounded, despite the simultaneous presence of inertia uncertainties, disturbances, and actuator faults. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify our theoretical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of optimal reliability in over-actuated systems. Overloading an actuator decreases its overall lifetime and reduces its average performance over a long time. Therefore, performance and reliability are two conflicting requirements. While appropriate reliability is related to average loads, good performance is related to fast response and sufficient loads generated by actuators. Actuator redundancy allows us to address both performance and reliability at the same time by properly allocating desired loads among redundant actuators. The main contribution of this paper is the on-line optimization of the overall plant reliability according to performance objective using an MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) rule-based method. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated through an experimental application to an octocopter helicopter testbed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]