Estimating the Loss of Effectiveness of UAV Actuators in the Presence of Aerodynamic Effects

This letter proposes an approach for estimating the loss of effectiveness of UAV actuators while also considering the presence of aerodynamic effects, most specifically those regarding blade-flapping. The fault detection scheme is based on a Reduced Order Extended Kalman Filter Tolerant to Aerodynamic Effects (ROEKF-TAE) capable of detecting loss-of-effectiveness (LOE) faults in more than one actuator at the same time. The experimental results were performed using a Parrot Mambo micro drone and compared to those of a traditional EKF, as well as to those of a state-of-the-art adaptive Kalman Filter available in the literature. The filter proposed in this work could better distinguish between the effects of the actual fault and those of the blade-flapping disturbance when compared to the other filters. Also, it was able to identify with more precision which actuators were truly defective and which were not.