Reliable control of a class of switched cascade nonlinear systems with its application to flight control

This paper considers the reliable control problem of a class of uncertain switched cascade nonlinear systems. A new state-feedback control method is proposed for global stabilization of the nonlinear switched systems against actuator faults with the existence of structural uncertainties. Compared with the existing results of switched systems, this paper mainly features on: (1) the proposed controller can stabilize a class of nonlinear systems with actuator faults and its nominal systems (i.e., without actuator faults) without necessarily changing any structures and/or parameters of the proposed controllers; (2) the proposed method treats all actuators in a unified way without necessarily classifying all actuators into faulty actuators and healthy ones; (3) the proposed method is independent of arbitrary switching policies. The simulation studies on a numerical example and on longitudinal dynamics of an F-18 aircraft operating on different heights show and further validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.