Hierarchical Structure-Based Fault-Tolerant Tracking Control of Multiple 3-DOF Laboratory Helicopters

This study proposes a hierarchical structure-based fault-tolerant tracking control methodology for multiple 3-DOF helicopters in the presence of system nonlinearities, uncertainties and simultaneous actuator faults (partial loss of effectiveness, stuck, and saturation), and sensor faults (bias and drift). The hierarchical structure consists of the decentralized fault estimation hierarchy and distributed fault-tolerant tracking control hierarchy. The distributed constant gain-based, node-based, and edge-based adaptive fault-tolerant tracking control designs are developed to cope with bidirectional interactions and to guarantee the robust asymptotic stability and the good tracking property of multihelicopter systems, respectively. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical structure-based tracking control algorithm.