A fault tolerant sliding mode controller for accommodating actuator failures.

This paper addresses the actuator failure compensation problem, and considers an uncertain linear plant which is supposed to undergo unknown failures causing the plant input components to be stuck at some uncertain but bounded time functions. A control policy, based on sliding mode, is presented, which guarantees the detection of the fault and the identification of the failed component by means of a suitable test input. Once the failed component has been identified, the control law is reconfigured, redistributing the control activity among the controllers still working. The proposed controller has been tested by simulation on a benchmark problem.