Hierarchical structure‐based adaptive fault‐tolerant consensus control for multiple 3‐DOF laboratory helicopters

Abstract

SummaryThis study investigates the consensus problem of multiple 3‐DOF laboratory helicopters modeled with system nonlinearity, uncertainty, and actuator faults. The simultaneous additives and partial loss of effectiveness actuator faults are considered. The fault detection hierarchy, the healthy control hierarchy, and the fault‐tolerant control hierarchy constitute the hierarchical structure of multihelicopter systems. The fault‐tolerant consensus protocol is switched from the healthy control hierarchy once the actuator fault is detected in the fault detection hierarchy. An adaptive fault‐tolerant consensus control scheme is developed on the basis of the instantaneous and integral estimations to compensate simultaneously for system nonlinearity, uncertainty, and actuator faults and to guarantee the mean‐square consensus in a completely distributed form. Simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive fault‐tolerant consensus control algorithm.