Two‐stage Kalman filter‐based actuator/surface fault identification and reconfigurable control applied to F‐16 fighter dynamics

In this study, an active fault‐tolerant control technique with reconfiguration against actuator/surface failures is presented. A two‐stage Kalman filter is designed in order to identify the control distribution matrix elements that correspond to the faulty actuator/surface; thus, the control reconfiguration is carried out using this identified control distribution matrix. The actuator/surface fault identification problem is solved through two jointly operating Kalman filters: the first one is for the estimation of the control distribution matrix elements that correspond to the faulty actuator/surface, and the second one is for the estimation of the state variables of the aircraft model. A structure for the active fault‐tolerant aircraft flight control system with reconfiguration against actuator/surface failures is presented. A control reconfiguration action is taken in order to keep the performance of the impaired aircraft the same as that of the unimpaired aircraft. In simulations, the nonlinear flight dynamics of an AFTI/F‐16 fighter model is considered, and the performance of the proposed actuator/surface failure identification and reconfigurable control schemes are examined for this model. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparisons of adaptive fault‐tolerant insensitive control methods for a class of linear systems

In this paper, the problem of fault‐tolerant insensitive control is addressed for a class of linear time‐invariant continuous‐time systems against bounded time‐varying actuator faults and controller gain variations. Adaptive mechanisms are developed to adjust controller gains in order to compensate for the detrimental effects of partial loss of control effectiveness and bias‐actuator faults. Variations of controller gains arise from time‐varying and bounded perturbations that are supposed to always exist in adaptive mechanisms. Based on the disturbed outputs of adaptive mechanisms, three different adaptive control strategies are constructed to achieve bounded stability results of the closed‐loop adaptive fault‐tolerant control systems in the presence of actuator faults and controller gain variations. Furthermore, comparisons of convergence boundaries of states and limits of control inputs among adaptive strategies are developed in this paper. The efficiency of the proposed adaptive control strategies and their comparisons are demonstrated by a rocket fairing structural‐acoustic model.     

A model reference tracking based on an active fault tolerant control for LPV systems

This work deals with the problem of a model reference tracking based on the design of an active fault tolerant control for linear parameter‐varying systems affected by actuator faults and unknown inputs. Linear parameter‐varying systems are described by a polytopic representation with measurable gain scheduling functions. The main contribution is to design an active fault tolerant controller whose control law is described by an adaptive proportional integral structure. This one requires 3 types of online information, which are reference outputs, measured real outputs, and the fault estimation provided by a model reference, sensors, and an adaptive polytopic observer, respectively. These types of information are used to reconfigure the designed controller, which is able to compensate the fault effects and to make the closed‐loop system able to track reference outputs in spite of the presence of actuator faults and disturbances. The controller and the observer gains are obtained by solving a set of linear matrices inequalities. Performances of the proposed method are compared to another previous method to underline the relevant results.     

Active fault‐tolerant control for near space vehicles based on reference model adaptive sliding mode scheme

In this paper, an adaptive sliding mode (ASM) scheme is proposed for fault identification and fault‐tolerant control of near space vehicles (NSVs). First, the attitude dynamic model is introduced, and a baseline controller based on reference sliding mode scheme is designed in the case of no faults. Then fault parameterizations with actuator dynamics is presented for several classes of faults: lock‐in‐place, float, hard‐over, and loss of effectiveness. On the basis of adaptive observer design, fault parameters can be accurately estimated on‐line. Furthermore, an ASM fault‐tolerant controller is designed for both cases of actuator dynamic faults and control effector damage. Finally, simulation experiments show that the proposed ASM scheme is able to quickly and accurately identify faults and reconfigure the controller, resulting in excellent overall system performance. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active fault‐tolerant control for switched systems with time delay

This paper focuses on the problem of active fault‐tolerant control for switched systems with time delay. By utilizing the fault diagnosis observer, an adaptive fault estimate algorithm is proposed, which can estimate the fault signal fast and exactly. Meanwhile, a delay‐dependent criterion is obtained with the purpose of reducing the conservatism of the adaptive observer design. Based on the fault estimation information, an observer‐based fault‐tolerant controller is designed to guarantee the stability of the closed‐loop system. In terms of linear matrix inequality, sufficient conditions are derived for the existence of the adaptive observer and fault‐tolerant controller. Finally, a numerical example is included to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive reconfigurable control of systems with time‐varying delay against unknown actuator faults

This work is concerned with the problem of delay‐dependent adaptive fault‐tolerant controller design against unknown actuator faults for linear continuous systems with time‐varying delay. Based on the online estimation of possible faults by discontinuous adaptation law, identification parameters of the adaptive state feedback controller are updated autonomously to compensate the fault effects on the delayed system. For the first time, a convex combination idea and a projection‐type adaptive approach are combined organically to derive the main results. A set of new delay‐dependent reconfigurable stabilization criteria, which guarantee the stability of closed‐loop systems in both fault‐free and faulty cases, is established in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Two numerical instances for linear delayed systems and the linearized model for the lateral motion of Boeing 747 are respectively simulated to illustrate the superiority and the effectiveness of the presented adaptive delay‐dependent results. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive finite‐time actuator fault‐tolerant coordinated attitude control of multispacecraft with input saturation

In this study, for nonrigid spacecraft formation, a distributed adaptive finite‐time actuator fault‐tolerant (FTAFT) coordinated attitude tracking control (CATC) issue is addressed. Aiming at stabilizing the spacecraft formation flying system during a limited time, two distributed adaptive FTAFT CATC strategies are presented. Initially, on basis of distributed finite‐time observer (DFTO), adaptive control, consensus approach, graph theory, and finite‐time theory, we develop a distributed adaptive FTAFT coordinated attitude tracking controller to repress the impact of the external state‐dependent and state‐independent disturbance, unknown time‐varying inertia uncertainty, and actuator fading or fault. Then, combining with the proposed controller, a distributed adaptive FTAFT control law with input saturation subjected to physical limitations of actuator is further designed. In addition, a self‐adjusting matrix (SAM) is proposed to improve the actuators' performance. With the two proposed CATC strategies, the followers can synchronize with the leader. Simulations demonstrated the validity of the designed control laws.     

Accommodation of unknown actuator faults using output feedback‐based adaptive robust control

In this paper, we solve the problem of output tracking for linear uncertain systems in the presence of unknown actuator failures using discontinuous projection‐based output feedback adaptive robust control (ARC). The faulty actuators are characterized as unknown inputs stuck at unknown values experiencing bounded disturbance and actuators losing effectiveness at unknown instants of time. Many existing techniques to solve this problem use model reference adaptive control (MRAC), which may not be well suited for handling various disturbances and modeling errors inherent to any realistic system model. Robust control‐based fault‐tolerant schemes have guaranteed transient performance and are capable of dealing with modeling errors to certain degrees. But, the steady‐state tracking accuracy of robust controllers, e.g. sliding mode controller, is limited. In comparison, the backstepping‐based output feedback adaptive robust fault‐tolerant control (ARFTC) strategy presented here can effectively deal with such uncertainties and overcome the drawbacks of individual adaptive and robust controls. Comparative simulation studies are performed on a linearized Boeing 747 model, which shows the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive fault tolerant control against actuator faults

This paper investigates the problem of adaptive fault tolerant control for a class of dynamic systems with unknown un‐modeled actuator faults. The fault model is assumed to be an unknown nonlinear function of control input, not in the traditional form in which the faults can be described as gain and/or bias faults. Using the property of the basic function of neural networks and the implicit function theorem, a novel neural networks‐based fault tolerant controller is designed. Finally, the lateral dynamics of a front‐wheeled steered vehicle is used to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design techniques. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active fault‐tolerant attitude control for flexible spacecraft with loss of actuator effectiveness

A theoretical framework for active fault‐tolerant attitude stabilization control is developed and applied to flexible spacecraft. The proposed scheme solves a difficult problem of fault‐tolerant controller design in the presence of severe partial loss of actuator effectiveness faults and external disturbances. This is accomplished by developing an observer‐based fault detection and diagnosis mechanism to reconstruct the actuator faults. Accordingly, a backstepping‐based fault‐tolerant control law is reconfigured using the reconstructed fault information. It is shown that the proposed design approach guarantees that all of the signals of the closed‐loop system are uniformly ultimately bounded. The closed‐loop performance of the proposed control strategy is evaluated extensively through numerical simulations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonlinear hierarchical control of a quad tilt‐wing UAV: An adaptive control approach

In this paper, a nonlinear hierarchical adaptive control framework is proposed for the control of a quad tilt‐wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). An outer loop model reference adaptive controller with robustifying terms creates required forces to be able to move the UAV on a reference trajectory, and an inner loop nonlinear adaptive controller realizes the required attitude angles to achieve these forces. A rigorous stability analysis is provided showing the boundedness of all the signals in this cascaded controller structure. The development and the stability analysis of the controller do not use any linearizations and use the full nonlinear UAV dynamics. The controller is implemented on a high‐fidelity nonlinear tilt‐wing quadrotor model in the presence of uncertainties, wind disturbances, and measurement noise as well as actuator and structural failures. In this work, in addition to earlier modeling studies, the effect of wing‐angle variations, actuator failures, and structural failures and their effect on the center of gravity of the UAV are rigorously and systematically investigated and reflected in the model. Simulation results showing the performance of the proposed controller and a comparison with the fixed controller used in earlier studies are presented in the paper.     

A discrete‐time indirect adaptive multiple‐model actuator failure compensation scheme

A new discrete‐time actuator failure compensation control scheme is developed, using a multiple‐model adaptive control approach which has the capacity to achieve faster and more accurate compensation of failure uncertainties. An individual adaptive system, for each possible failure pattern in a failure pattern set of interest for compensation, is designed using an indirect model reference adaptive control scheme for actuator failure compensation. A multiple‐model control switching mechanism for discrete‐time systems is set up by finding the minimal performance index to select the most appropriate control law. The performance indices are based on the adaptive estimation errors of individual parameterized systems with actuator failures. Simulation results from an aircraft flight control system example are presented to show the desired closed‐loop system stability and tracking performance despite the presence of uncertain actuator failures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Model‐free fault‐tolerant control approach for uncertain state‐constrained linear systems with actuator faults

This paper investigates the robust adaptive fault‐tolerant control problem for state‐constrained continuous‐time linear systems with parameter uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults including stuck, outage, and loss of effectiveness. It is assumed that the knowledge of the system matrices, as well as the upper bounds of the disturbances and faults, is unknown. By incorporating a barrier‐function like term into the Lyapunov function design, a novel model‐free fault‐tolerant control scheme is proposed in a parameter‐dependent form, and the state constraint requirements are guaranteed. The time‐varying parameters are adjusted online based on an adaptive method to prevent the states from violating the constraints and compensate automatically the uncertainties, disturbances, and actuator faults. The time‐invariant parameters solved by using data‐based policy iteration algorithm are introduced for helping to stabilize the system. Furthermore, it is shown that the states converge asymptotically to zero without transgression of the constraints and all signals in the resulting closed‐loop system are uniformly bounded. Finally, two simulation examples are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust fault tolerant control for a class of networked control systems with state delay and stochastic actuator failures

This paper is concerned with the robust fault tolerant controller design of networked control systems (NCSs) with state delay and stochastic actuator failures. By utilizing the input delay approach, an equivalent continuous‐time generalized time delay system in both state and input is obtained. By applying a delay decomposition approach, the information of the delayed plant states can be taken into full consideration, and new delay‐dependent sufficient conditions that ensure the asymptotic mean‐square stability of NCSs with stochastic actuator failures are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). It is realized by employing a new Lyapunov–Krasovskii function in the decomposed integral intervals and directly handle the inversely weighted convex combination of quadratic terms of integral quantities with reciprocally convex combination technique. Moreover, the proposed approach involves neither slack variable nor any model transformation. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and less conservatism of the proposed method.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LMI‐based adaptive output feedback fault‐tolerant controller design for nonlinear systems

This paper presents 2‐novel linear matrix inequality (LMI)‐based adaptive output feedback fault‐tolerant control strategies for the class of nonlinear Lipschitz systems in the presence of bounded matched or mismatched disturbances and simultaneous occurrence of actuator faults, including failure, loss of effectiveness, and stuck. The constructive algorithms based on LMI with creatively using Lyapunov stability theory and without the need for an explicit information about mode of actuator faults or fault detection and isolation mechanism are developed for online tuning of adaptive and fixed output‐feedback gains to stabilize the closed‐loop control system asymptotically. The proposed controllers guarantee to compensate actuator faults effects and to attenuate disturbance effects. The resulting control methods have simpler structure, as compared with most existing recent methods and more suitable for practical systems. The merits of the proposed fault‐tolerant control scheme have been verified by the simulation on nonlinear Boeing 747 lateral motion dynamic model subjected to actuator faults.     

Fault estimation and tolerant control for discrete‐time switched systems with sojourn probabilities

This paper addresses the issue of fault estimation and accommodation for a discrete‐time switched system with actuator faults. Here, we assume that the sojourn probabilities are known a priori. By using the reduced‐order observer method, the sojourn probability approach, and the Lyapunov technique, a fault estimation algorithm is obtained for the considered system. The main objective of this work is to design a dynamic output feedback fault‐tolerant controller based on the obtained fault estimation information such that the closed‐loop discrete‐time switched system with available sojourn probabilities is robustly mean‐square stable and satisfies a prescribed mixed and passivity disturbance attenuation level in the presence of actuator faults. More precisely, a dynamic output feedback fault‐tolerant controller is established in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the usefulness and effectiveness of the proposed design technique.     

Robust actuator fault compensation accounting for uncertainty in the fault estimation

We propose a fault tolerant control scheme that compensates for actuator faults by adjusting the controller gain based on an estimate of the fault magnitude. The scheme consists of a plant in closed loop with an observer‐based feedback tracking controller, which is adapted to the fault situation diagnosed by a fault detection and isolation algorithm. We give conditions for correct fault detection and isolation and for robust closed‐loop stability accounting for possible errors in the fault estimation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Actuator fault‐tolerant control based on set separation

In this paper, an actuator fault‐tolerant control (FTC) strategy based on set separation is presented. The proposed scheme employs a standard configuration consisting of a bank of observers which match the different fault situations that can occur in the plant. Each of these observers has an associated estimation error with a distinctive behaviour when a estimator matches the current fault situation of the plant. With this information from each observer, a fault diagnosis and isolation (FDI) module is able to reconfigure the control loop by selecting the appropriate stabilising controller from a bank of precomputed control laws, each of them related to one of the considered fault models. The control law consists of a reference feedforward term and a feedback gain multiplying the state estimate provided by the matching observer. A novel feature of the proposed scheme resides in the decision criteria of the FDI, which is based on the computation of sets towards which the output estimation errors related to each fault scenario and for each control configuration converge. Conditions for the design of the FDI module and for fault tolerant closed‐loop stability are given, and the effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by means of a numerical example. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active fault‐tolerant control system design with trajectory re‐planning against actuator faults and saturation: Application to a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle

During the past 30 years, various fault‐tolerant control (FTC) methods have been developed to address actuator or component faults for various systems with or without tracking control objectives. However, very few FTC strategies establish a relation between the post‐fault reference trajectory to track and the remaining resources in the system after fault occurrence. This is an open problem that is not well considered in the literature. The main contribution of this paper is in the design of a reconfigurable FTC and trajectory planning scheme with emphasis on online decision making using differential flatness. In the fault‐free case and on the basis of the available actuator resources, the reference trajectories are synthesized so as to drive the system as fast as possible to its desired setpoint without violating system constraints. In the fault case, the proposed active FTC system (AFTCS) consists in synthesizing a reconfigurable feedback control along with a modified reference trajectories once an actuator fault has been diagnosed by a fault detection and diagnosis scheme, which uses a parameter‐estimation‐based unscented Kalman filter. Benefited with the integration of trajectory re‐planning using the flatness concept and the compensation‐based reconfigurable controller, both faults and saturation in actuators can be handled effectively with the proposed AFTCS design. Advantages and limitations of the proposed AFTCS are illustrated using an experimental quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle testbed.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

不确定混沌系统的鲁棒自适应容错同步控制

针对一类带有执行器故障、非线性不确定性以及外界干扰的混沌系统,设计一个鲁棒自适应容错控制器,来实现主从混沌系统之间的同步容错控制。不需要知晓准确的故障信息以及外界干扰的上界,根据自适应律在线估计未知量。结合自适应控制技术,设计鲁棒自适应容错控制器,使得无论执行器是否有故障发生,主从两个混沌系统都能够实现同步。以经典的蔡氏混沌电路系统为例进行数值仿真,仿真结果验证了所设计控制器的有效性和可行性。