Fault-Tolerant flight control for nonlinear-UAV

This paper describes the robust performance of a novel active Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) approach for a nonlinear Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) during weapon delivery and with battled damaged wing, both considered as fault effects. The aircraft dynamics with mass variation and variable wing parameters are introduced and approximately linearized on-line using a dynamic inversion controller based on differential geometry theory. For the linearized system, an active FTC scheme is accomplished via a linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach, based on a simultaneous state/faults observer by solving a Lyapunov equation. The simulation results demonstrate the robust stability and satisfactory FTC performance of the proposed design approach.