Reconfigurable Control of a Class of Multicopters

In this paper, a reconfigurable control scheme for a generalized class of multicopters is presented to overcome single or multiple rotor failures. In a multicopter, the rotor failure heavily affects its dynamics and thus its controllability. Limited controllability leads to limited or no reconfigurability. Available Control Authority Index has been recently developed [1] as a measure of controllability of multicopters. In this work, the notion of Available Reduced-Control Authority Index (ArCAI) is introduced, which shows that in some uncontrollable failures it is still possible to control reduced set of states. Based on this notion, a reconfigurable control scheme is presented, which comprises a Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion based baseline control law, a constrained control allocation scheme along with some modifications to incorporate reconfiguration, and a simplified fault detection and isolation technique. Simulation results for a commonly used configuration of Hexacopter are presented in the presence of single and multiple rotor failures.