Reconfigurable control design for over-actuated systems based on reliability indicators

Control allocation is a solution to distribute the control efforts among a redundant set. A new approach to manage the actuators redundancy in the presence of faults is proposed based on reliability indicators. The aim is to preserve the health of the actuators and the availability of the system both in the nominal behavior and in the presence of actuator faults. In degraded functional, a reconfigured control allocation strategy is proposed based on the on-line re-estimation of actuators reliability. A benefit of incorporate the reliability indicators on the over-actuated control system design is to manage smartly the redundant actuators and improve the safety of the system. The proposed approach is illustrated with a flight control application.