Adaptive failure compensation for uncertain systems with multiple inputs

The aim of this paper is to develop controllers for uncertain systems in the presence of stuck type actuator failures. A new scheme is proposed to design output feedback controllers for a class of uncertain systems having redundant control inputs, with which the relative degrees of transfer functions are different. To deal with these inputs using backstepping technique, a pre-filter is introduced before each actuator such that its output is the input to the actuator. The orders of the pre-filters are chosen properly to ensure all their inputs can be designed at the same step in the systematic design. To compensate for the effects of possible failed actuators, more uncertain parameters than system parameters are required to be identified. With the proposed scheme, the global boundedness of the closed-loop system can still be ensured and the system output can be regulated to a specific value when some of the actuators' outputs are stuck at unknown fixed values.