A Nonlinear Guidance and Active Fault Tolerant Control System for a Fixed Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

By using an interactive architecture of independently designed guidance and active fault tolerant control systems, this work proposes the development of a novel Guidance and Active Fault Tolerant Control Scheme (GAFTCS) for a fixed wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). As to the guidance segment, an approach, of the Feedback Linearisation (FL) type, has been exploited for developing, directly on the dynamic model of the fixed wing UAV, the guidance system. With reference to the control segment, this paper proposes an AFTCS methodology based on Adaptive Filters designed by means of the Non Linear Geometric Approach (AF-NLGA). The aim of the AF-NLGA is to provide a fault estimate, which is used in a further control loop, thus avoiding a logic-based switching controller. The simulation results show good tracking capabilities, asymptotic fault accommodation, and control objective recovery for the overall GAFTCS.