Fault-tolerant control of a class of switched nonlinear systems with application to flight control

Abstract

This paper considers robust fault-tolerant control problem of a class of uncertain switched nonlinear systems. A new state feedback fault-tolerant control method is proposed for global stabilization of the nonlinear switched systems against actuator faults and structure uncertainties. Compared with the existing results on fault-tolerant control of switched systems, this paper mainly features: 1) the proposed controller can stabilize a class of nonlinear systems with actuator faults and its nominal systems (i.e., without actuator faults) without necessarily changing any structures and/or parameters of the proposed controllers; 2) the proposed method treats all actuators in a unified way without necessarily classifying all actuators into faulty actuators and healthy ones; 3) the proposed method is independent on arbitrary switching polices. Simulation studies on a numerical example and on the longitudinal dynamics of an F-18 aircraft operating on different heights show the effectiveness of the proposed method. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.