Fault-tolerant Formation Control Research Articles

Incremental fully actuated system approach-based prescribed-time fault-tolerant formation control of helicopters under multiple faults

Helicopter formation is characterized by intricate dynamics, complex mechanics, and challenging scenarios, raising the necessity for agile, robust, and convenient controller design. This paper explores the prescribed-time fault-tolerant formation control of multiple helicopters through the incremental fully actuated system approach, which addresses multiple faults in sensors and swash plate struts. First, the helicopter model encompassing aerodynamic, flapping dynamic, swash plate dynamic, actuator faults, and sensor faults is established and further partitioned into attitude and position subsystems. Then, in the attitude subsystem, a prescribed-time attitude controller based on the incremental fully actuated system approach is proposed to track the desired attitude with robustness against actuator faults, aerodynamic drags, inter-axis coupling, and non-linearity. Next, in the position subsystem, the faults of velocity and position sensors are estimated and compensated through the prescribed-time fault-estimation observer, and a prescribed-time formation controller through the incremental fully actuated system approach is designed to achieve distributed leader-follower formation control. A Task-Fault dual-driven scheduling mechanism of the parameters of the prescribed-time technique is developed to promptly activate the prescribed-time function, and the control scheme is proven to be prescribed-time convergent via Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm.

Fixed-Time Collision-Free Fault-Tolerant Formation Control of Multi-UAVs Under Actuator Faults.

When cooperating through an intensive formation, the safe distancing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a delicate issue, especially if UAVs are subjected to actuator faults that cause rapid maneuvers. This article investigates the fixed-time fault-tolerant formation control of multiple quadrotor UAVs under actuator faults, which considers the collision avoidance among UAVs when faults occur, and the convenience of engineering application. First, an augmented fixed-time observer with measurement noise oppression is adopted to estimate and compensate actuator faults and disturbance in rotational and translational dynamics. Then, a baseline attitude controller, a command filter, and a velocity controller are proposed for each quadrotor UAV to track the desired velocity within a fixed time. Next, a distributed fixed-time sliding-mode controller that integrates the gradient of repulsive potential function into the sliding manifold is designed to achieve leader-follower formation control and collision avoidance simultaneously. The control scheme is proven to be fixed-time convergent via Lyapunov stability analysis and is normalized in accordance with the compatibility of hardware implementation. Finally, the designed algorithm is embedded into PX4 architecture to illustrate the effectiveness and practicality of the control strategy.

Learning Neural Network-Based Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Elliptical Orbit Spacecraft

Learning Neural Network-Based Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Elliptical Orbit Spacecraft

Finite-Time Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Distributed Multi-Vehicle Networks With Bearing Measurements

This paper addresses a bearing-only formation tracking problem in robotic networks by considering exogenous disturbances and actuator faults. In contrast to traditional position-based coordination strategies, the bearing-only coordinated movements of the unmanned vehicles only rely on the neighboring bearing information. This feature can be utilized to reduce the sensing requirements in the hardware implementation. A gradient-descent protocol is first developed to achieve the desired coordination within a prespecified settling time, where the unknown disturbances are considered in the vehicle dynamics, then the bound of formation tracking error is guaranteed by the Lyapunov approach. In case of damage to the actuators (e.g., motors) in some of the vehicles during the task, fault-tolerant analysis of the proposed controller is provided to ensure the success of the task in extreme environments. Furthermore, the proposed bearing-based method is extended to deal with general linear systems, which can be applied to a wider range of robotic platforms. Finally, numerical simulations and lab-based experiments using unmanned ground vehicles are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —The aim of this paper is to develop and design a practical bearing-only formation control approach for multi-vehicle systems. Many real-world complex tasks can be solved by multiple unmanned aerial and ground vehicles being connected by a communication network. This paper has proposed a formation tracking scheme for networked multi-vehicle systems that only relies on the relative bearing information of the neighboring vehicles. Closed-loop stability of the scheme and finite-time convergence of the tracking error have been established using the Lyapunov stability approach. The proposed method ensures the robustness and fault-tolerance of the multi-vehicle system against hardware faults or exogenous disturbances. A systematic set of guidelines on how to apply the proposed strategy in practice is also provided for the control practitioners in the form of an algorithm. In order to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the proposed coordination scheme, numerical simulations and lab-based hardware experiments were conducted. Potential applications of the proposed scheme include search and rescue, security surveillance and cooperative exploration.

Reinforcement Learning-Based Fractional-Order Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Formation Control of Networked Fixed-Wing UAVs With Prescribed Performance.

This article investigates the fault-tolerant formation control (FTFC) problem for networked fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against faults. To constrain the distributed tracking errors of follower UAVs with respect to neighboring UAVs in the presence of faults, finite-time prescribed performance functions (PPFs) are developed to transform the distributed tracking errors into a new set of errors by incorporating user-specified transient and steady-state requirements. Then, the critic neural networks (NNs) are developed to learn the long-term performance indices, which are used to evaluate the distributed tracking performance. Based on the generated critic NNs, actor NNs are designed to learn the unknown nonlinear terms. Moreover, to compensate for the reinforcement learning errors of actor-critic NNs, nonlinear disturbance observers (DOs) with skillfully constructed auxiliary learning errors are developed to facilitate the FTFC design. Furthermore, by using the Lyapunov stability analysis, it is shown that all follower UAVs can track the leader UAV with predesigned offsets, and the distributed tracking errors are finite-time convergent. Finally, comparative simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

Fuzzy Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for USVs With Intermittent Actuator Faults

Fuzzy Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for USVs With Intermittent Actuator Faults

Prescribed-time fault-tolerant control for the formation of quadrotors based on fully-actuated system approaches

This paper investigates the problem of prescribed-time fault-tolerant control for the formation of quadrotors by utilising the fully-actuated system approach. Since not all quadrotors can directly access the virtual leader's state, a distributed prescribed-time observer is designed to estimate the state of a virtual leader. Leveraging this observer, a horizontal position controller that combines the fully-actuated system approach with the prescribed-time method, as well as altitude and attitude fault-tolerant controller, are proposed. In the design of control law, two distinct sets of controllers are designed: asymptotically stable controller and prescribed-time controller, each tailored to specific control objectives. The proposed distributed prescribed-time observer can ensure that the estimation error of the leader's state reaches zero within any specified time interval. Finally, the numerical simulation is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed fault-tolerant formation control algorithm.

Prescribed-time event-triggered fault-tolerant formation control of multiple UAVs under tracking error constraints

This paper studies an event-triggered fault-tolerant tracking control strategy design of multiple quadrotor UAVs (MQUAVs) formation subject to the composite influence of external disturbance, tracking error constraints and actuator faults. A prescribed time prescribed performance function is employed to solve tracking error constraints and it ensures the tracking error enters into the constraint boundary in the prescribed time. A first-order filter is designed to solve the problem of computational explosion caused by reference trajectory and unknown external disturbance. The adaptive method is used to deal with the unknown parameters and the comprehensive uncertainty which contains actuator faults and external disturbance. Furthermore, the event-triggered controller is designed to achieve the formation tracking with the reduction of update number of controller to save resources. The bounded stability of the tracking error is proved via the Lyapunov theory. At last, the effectiveness of the control strategy is verified by simulation.

Fully Actuated System Approach Based Prescribed-Time Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Unmanned Helicopters Under Fixed and Switching Topologies

Fully Actuated System Approach Based Prescribed-Time Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Unmanned Helicopters Under Fixed and Switching Topologies

Distributed Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Formation-Containment Control With Prescribed Performance for Heterogeneous Multiagent Systems.

This article proposes a distributed adaptive fault-tolerant formation-containment control with prescribed performance for heterogeneous multiagent systems (MASs) consisting of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the presence of actuator faults. First, utilizing the neighborhood formation error information, the distributed fault-tolerant formation control strategy is developed for the trajectory dynamics of each UAV to achieve the formation tracking, that is, all UAVs track the virtual leader and perform the prespecified formation configuration. Then, the adaptive fault-tolerant containment algorithm, independent of the positions of the leaders, is proposed to guarantee the UGVs converge to the convex hull formed by the leader UAVs. The adaptive estimation scheme is constructed to compensate for the unknown system parameters and actuator loss-of-effectiveness and bias faults. The formation-containment tracking performance is analyzed based on Lyapunov theory with the synchronization errors satisfying the prescribed performance. A simulation example based on UAVs-UGVs systems is adopted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

Distributed Adaptive Fixed-Time Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Heterogeneous Multiagent Systems With a Leader of Unknown Input.

In this article, the distributed adaptive fixed-time output time-varying formation tracking issue of heterogeneous multiagent systems (MASs) with actuator faults is addressed, in which the followers suffer from loss-of-effectiveness actuator faults, and the leader has unknown bounded input. To solve the above issue, a distributed fixed-time observer is constructed with the leader's unknown input, by which each follower can obtain the leader's states in a predesigned time. Then, based on the observer and the desired formation vector, a local adaptive fixed-time fault-tolerant formation control algorithm is proposed for each follower with the help of time-varying gains to make up for the influence of actuator faults. Furthermore, it is proven that the designed controller can satisfactorily accomplish the considered task of the heterogeneous MASs by using the Lyapunov stability theory. Specifically, the obtained upper bound of the convergence time only depends on a few controller parameters. Finally, a simulation example is implemented to validate the efficiency of the analytical results.

Distributed adaptive fault tolerant formation control for multiple underwater vehicles: Free-will arbitrary time approach

This note examines the distributed free-will arbitrary time (FwAT) fault-tolerant formation control for heterogeneous multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) operating under actuator faults, uncertainties, and exogenous disturbances. The established formation control protocol is free from initial conditions and provides higher tracking accuracy, singularity-free and smooth control signal, while the convergence time of the system is non-conservative. An adaptive nonsingular sliding mode is then developed in which the bound of lumped uncertainty is not necessary to know in advance. Due to the need for a rapid and immediate response in fixed-time control, the actuators are prone to saturation as a result of the high control torque required and to overcome this issue, an input saturation compensator is designed and incorporated into the control framework. Stability analysis under the developed control law is thoroughly performed using the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, simulations and comparisons are demonstrated in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed distributed formation control algorithm for a group of AUVs.

Cost-effective distributed FTFC for uncertain nonholonomic mobile robot fleet with collision avoidance and connectivity preservation

In this paper, the fault-tolerant formation control (FTFC) problem is investigated for a group of uncertain nonholonomic mobile robots with limited communication ranges and unpredicted actuator faults, where the communication between the robots is in a directed one-to-one way. In order to guarantee the connectivity preservation and collision avoidance among the robots, some properly chosen performance functions are incorporated into the controller to per-assign the asymmetrical bounds for relative distance and bearing angle between each pair of adjacent mobile robots. Particularly, the resultant control scheme remains at a cost-effective level because its design does not use any velocity information from neighbors, any prior knowledge of system nonlinearities or any nonlinear approximator to account for them despite the presence of modeling uncertainties, unknown external disturbances, and unexpected actuator faults. Meanwhile, each follower is derived to track the leader with the tracking errors regarding relative distance and bearing angle subject to prescribed transient and steady-state performance guarantees, respectively. Moreover, all the closed-loop signals are ensured to be ultimately uniformly bounded. Finally, a numerical example is simulated to verify the effectiveness of this methodology.

Continuous Fixed-Time Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Heterogeneous Multiagent Systems Under Fixed and Switching Topologies

This article proposes a novel continuous fixed-time fault-tolerant formation control framework for heterogeneous multiagent systems (HMASs) involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) with actuator faults and model uncertainties under fixed and switching topologies. Firstly, to estimate the information of actuator faults and uncertainties for each follower, a fixed-time observer is constructed. Then, an integral fixed-time sliding mode surface is designed such that the merits of high robustness, exact transient response and fixed-time convergence can be achieved. Subsequently, based on the integration of disturbance observer, high-order sliding mode and backstepping technologies, distributed and decentralized continuous fixed-time formation tracking control schemes under actuator faults are developed of the HMASs in the X-Y axis and Z axis, respectively. The proposed algorithm can not only handle time-varying formation in a timely manner, but also provide continuous control action under fixed and switching topologies. It is theoretically proved that the designed protocol can realize the expected fixed-time formation missions by employing the Lyapunov stability theorem. Finally, simulation results verify the effectiveness of the designed fixed-time control algorithm.

Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Multiple Stochastic AUV System under Markovian Switching Topologies

Formation control, which is a core problem in multi-autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) systems, plays an important role in realizing safe and accurate cooperation of multi-AUV systems. This paper provides a study on fault-tolerant formation control for multiple stochastic AUV systems under Markovian switching topologies. Considering the effect of noise and Markovian switching communication topology, a novel leader-following group formation control protocol with an actuator fault for a multi-AUV system is developed under the influence of the two independent stochastic processes. The designed controller is proved by an infinitesimal generator with Lyapunov stability theory and can guarantee that the follower AUVs’ states will eventually converge to the leader’s state in each subgroup while forming the desired sub-formation. Finally, the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis is verified by a simulation experiment.

Fixed-Time Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for a Cooperative Heterogeneous Multiagent System With Prescribed Performance

This article investigates the fixed-time fault-tolerant formation control problem of a leader–follower heterogeneous multiagent system (HMAS), including multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and multiple unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) under loss of effectiveness actuator faults and disturbances. Different from the existing fixed-time formation results, to realize the special application, a finite-time performance function (FTPF) is considered, which can guarantee that formation error converges to a prescribed arbitrarily small region within a known time. Then, based on sliding mode control and bi-limit homogeneity, distributed and decentralized fixed-time formation control algorithms are constructed for the HMAS in the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$x$ </tex-math></inline-formula> – <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$y$ </tex-math></inline-formula> axis and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$z$ </tex-math></inline-formula> axis, respectively, which can steer the whole system achieving target formation configuration within a scheduled time. In addition, based on local state information, adaptive online updating strategies for unknown actuator efficiency factors and lumped uncertainties are proposed. Then, under the online updating parameters, two novel distributed and decentralized adaptive fault-tolerant formation control laws are presented using practical fixed-time stability theory, which not only achieves stable formation tracking with finite-time prescribed behavioral metrics but also ensures that the formation errors are uniformly bounded within a settling time. Finally, the effectiveness of the developed control schemes is verified by simulation examples.

Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Formation Control for Heterogeneous UAVs-UGVs Systems With Multiple Actuator Faults

This paper investigates the fault-tolerant formation control problem for heterogeneous multi-agent systems (MASs) consisting of quad-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and two-wheel driven unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the presence of multiple actuator faults. The heterogeneous dynamic characteristics and the uncertainties of the control gain matrix generated by actuator faults, especially the sudden changes to system structure due to finite sequential faults increase the difficulty of the formation control design. The dynamic models of UAVs and UGVs are first transformed to obtain the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$XOY$</tex-math></inline-formula> two-dimensional position formation systems of UAVs-UGVs and the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Z$</tex-math></inline-formula> -axis altitude system of UAVs. Then, a distributed adaptive direct fault compensation control strategy is designed for the position system of the UAVs-UGVs and the <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Z$</tex-math></inline-formula> -axis altitude subsystems of UAVs, respectively, which can guarantee the expected formation structure under the influence of finite sequential faults. A simulation study based on the UAVs-UGVs cooperative systems is adopted to demonstrate the validity of the proposed fault compensation strategy.

Fixed-Time Optimal Fault-Tolerant Formation Control With Prescribed Performance for Fixed-Wing UAVs Under Dual Faults

Fixed-Time Optimal Fault-Tolerant Formation Control With Prescribed Performance for Fixed-Wing UAVs Under Dual Faults

Target Enclosing and Coverage Control for Quadrotors with Constraints and Time-Varying Delays: A Neural Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Formation Control Approach.

This paper investigates the problem of formation fault-tolerant control of multiple quadrotors (QRs) for a mobile sensing oriented application. The QRs subject to faults, input saturation and time-varying delays can be controlled to perform a target-enclosing and covering task while guaranteeing the state constraints will not be exceeded. A distributed formation control scheme is proposed, using a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN)-based time-delay position controller and an adaptive fault-tolerant attitude controller. The Lyapunov–Krasovskii approach is used to analyze the time-varying delay. Barrier Lyapunov function is deployed to handle the prescribed constraints, and an auxiliary system combined with a command filter is designed to resolve the saturation problem. An RBFNN and adaptive estimators are deployed to provide estimates of disturbances, fault signals and uncertainties. It is proven that all the closed-loop signals are bounded under the proposed protocol, while the prescribed constraints will not be violated, which enhances the flight safety and QR formation’s applicability. Comparative simulations based on application scenarios further verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Formation Control of Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Systems under Directed Communication Topology.

This paper investigates the adaptive fault-tolerant formation control scheme for heterogeneous multi-agent systems consisting of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) with actuator faults, parameter uncertainties and external disturbances under directed communication topology. Firstly, the dynamic models of UAVs and USVs are introduced, and a unified heterogeneous multi-agent system model with actuator faults is established. Then, a distributed fault-tolerant formation controller is proposed for the unified model of UAVs and USVs in the plane by using adaptive updating laws and radial basis function neural network. After that, a decentralized formation-tracking controller is designed for the altitude control system of UAVs. Based on the Lyapunov stability theory, it can be proved that the formation errors and tracking errors are uniformly ultimately bounded which means that the expected time-varying formation is achieved. Finally, a simulation study is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.