Adaptive flight control for unmanned autonomous helicopter with external disturbance and actuator fault

Abstract

A backstepping-based robust adaptive fault tolerant control (FTC) scheme is proposed for the altitude and attitude dynamic model of the medium-scale unmanned autonomous helicopter (UAH) subjected to external disturbance and actuator fault. The external disturbance and actuator fault are integrated into the medium-scale UAH altitude and attitude dynamic model. Since the actuator fault is uncertain in occurring time instant, the adaptive control approach is adopted to compensate for its negative effect. Meanwhile, the upper bound of external disturbance is estimated and the estimation is employed to design the controller. Based on the backstepping control technique, a robust adaptive FTC law is developed, which guarantees the desired system stability as well as the satisfactory tracking property. Simulation studies verify the effectiveness of the designed controller.