Thrust balance estimation of an unmanned aerial vehicle: Application to fault detection

Due to uncertain flight conditions as well as faults, an outdoor performance of any unmanned aerial vehicle is a challenging task. Indeed, owing to weather conditions it is entirely different that any laboratory tests. While small and radio controlled drones are relatively common devices, they are still unruly while wind blows. Moreover, process and actuator faults may also significantly impair the overall system performance. All of these factors are reflected by the thrust balance. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to propose a scheme that can be used for simultaneous estimation the thrust balance as well as the state under uncertain environment. The estimated information allows performing decisions about the current faulty/fault-free situation of the system. The proposed approach is based on the paradigm, which can be relatively easily implemented on the chips dedicated to popular drones, such as Arduino or raspberry pi based solutions that are widely available.