Avionic air data sensors fault detection and isolation by means of singular perturbation and geometric approach

Singular Perturbations represent an advantageous theory to deal with systems characterized by a two-time scale separation, such as the longitudinal dynamics of aircraft which are called phugoid and short period. In this work, the combination of the NonLinear Geometric Approach and the Singular Perturbations leads to an innovative Fault Detection and Isolation system dedicated to the isolation of faults affecting the air data system of a general aviation aircraft. The isolation capabilities, obtained by means of the approach proposed in this work, allow for the solution of a fault isolation problem otherwise not solvable by means of standard geometric techniques. Extensive Monte-Carlo simulations, exploiting a high fidelity aircraft simulator, show the effectiveness of the proposed Fault Detection and Isolation system.