Nonlinear Actuator Fault Detection and Isolation for a General Aviation Aircraft

This article addresses the problem of detection and isolation of actuator faults for a general aviation aircraft, where the nonlinear simulation aircraft model embeds the effects of wind gusts, atmospheric turbulence and measurement errors. The approach is based on the recently introduced nonlinear geometric approach (NLGA) to the fault detection and isolation (FDI) problem. The actuator’s FDI is performed in a coordinated turn, hence with coupled longitudinal and lateral-directional dynamics. This work represents the first complete NLGA FDI scheme for a general aviation aircraft in a condition with tight-coupled dynamics. The results obtained in the simulation of the faulty behaviour of a nonlinear Piper PA30 aircraft are finally reported.