Fault-Tolerant Control for Carrier-Based Aircraft Based on Adaptive Fuzzy Sliding-Mode Method

Abstract

Carrier-based aircraft landing involves complex system engineering characterised by strong nonlinearity, significant coupling and susceptibility to environmental disturbances, and autonomous landing of carrier-based aircraft under fault states is even more challenging and riskier. To address the control-system problems of loss of efficiency and performance due to actuator faults and performance degradation due to various unknown disturbances, presented here is fault-tolerant control for carrier-based aircraft based on adaptive fuzzy sliding-mode fault-tolerant control (AFSMFTC). First, three models are built (the carrier-based aircraft fault model, the carrier air wake model and the deck motion model), and the control framework of the autonomous landing control system is introduced. Next, a longitudinal and lateral flight channel controller comprising an adaptive fuzzy network, adaptive laws and a sliding-mode controller is designed using the AFSMFTC method. The adaptive fuzzy network implements fuzzy approximation for the sliding-mode switching terms to further offset errors induced by unknown disturbances, the adaptive laws compensate for actuator faults, and the sliding-mode controller ensures tracking of the overall flight path. Furthermore, the stability of the fault-tolerant method is demonstrated using the Lyapunov function. Finally, simulation and comparative experiments show that the proposed fault-tolerant method has outstanding control performance and strong fault-tolerant capability, thereby providing an effective and feasible solution for designing an autonomous landing system for carrier-based aircraft under fault states.