Actuator Fault Detection in UAVs, in Handbook of Unmanned Aircraft
Résumé
Future unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be designed to
achieve their missions with increased efficiency, safety, and
security. To this end, an efficient fault detection and isolation
(FDI) system should be capable of monitoring the health status
of the aircraft. Fault-tolerant control systems for small and
low-cost UAVs should not increase significantly the number
of actuators or sensors needed to achieve the safer operation.
This chapter is dedicated to actuator fault detection systems
for UAVs, with two main requirements: real-time capability
and modularity. After defining the terminology employed in
this field, this chapter reviews some commonly used techniques
in FDI systems. The chapter continues by presenting briefly
the mathematical model of a UAV which will serve as a basis
for the design of two actuator FDI systems. The first method
presents and illustrates the multiple-model approach, whereas
the second method presents an FDI system which is based
on a single model. Both methods have been enhanced by a
mechanism that actively tests actuators in order to efficiently
detect and isolate actuator faults and failures. This chapter
explains the advantages and drawbacks of each method and
discusses issues of robustness against model uncertainties and
external perturbation. In addition, aspects of computational
load are addressed. Finally, the FDI systems of this chapter are
applied to a realistic model of an unmanned aircraft, and the
performance of the methods is shown in simulation.