Fault Tolerant Control for Tilted Hexarotors Under a Rotor Failure

Abstract

This paper addresses the active fault tolerant control problem for a tilted hexarotor under both actuator faults and failures, modelled respectively as partial or total losses of effectiveness. A disturbance observer based control approach is adopted in order to estimate faults and failures, and cope with them at the control level. An inner-outer loop tracking control law is then designed which, thanks to the actuation properties of the hexarotor, does not require any reconfiguration neither in response to a fault nor failure. The control scheme is tested in simulation, with parameters of a real hexarotor and realistic sensor noise.