Adaptive finite-time incremental backstepping fault-tolerant control for flying-wing aircraft with state constraints

Abstract

This paper proposes an incremental nonlinear fault-tolerant control scheme for flying-wing aircraft subject to state constraints under model uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults. Firstly, the aircraft attitude dynamics system with state constraints is transformed into a free-constrained system by a nonlinear state-dependent function (NSDF), which simplifies the controller design in a direct and concise way. Based on the NSDF, a novel finite-time incremental backstepping (FT-IBS) method is proposed to achieve rapid attitude tracking and reduce the reliance on model knowledge, simultaneously. In this method, a command filter is designed to address the issues of complexity explosion and singularity, and particular stability compensators ensures the closed-loop system to achieve finite-time stability. Then, to overcome the lumped disturbances composed of uncertainties and faults, a new adaptive multivariable finite-time disturbance observer (AMFTDO) is designed for rapid estimation and compensation, and its adaptive strategy ensure high-precision tracking performance under complex time-varying lumped disturbances. Finally, comparative simulation results confirm that the proposed control scheme can achieve faster convergence, higher tracking accuracy, and stronger robustness.