Robust fault tolerant tracking controller design for a VTOL aircraft

This paper deals with the fault tolerant control (FTC) design for a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft subject to external disturbances and actuator faults. The aim is to synthesize a fault tolerant controller ensuring trajectory tracking for the nonlinear uncertain system represented by a Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) model. In order to design the FTC law, a proportional integral observer (PIO) is adopted which estimate both of the faults and the faulty system states. Based on the Lyapunov theory and ℒ2 optimization, the trajectory tracking performance and the stability of the closed loop system are analyzed. Sufficient conditions are obtained in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMI). Simulation results show that the proposed controller is robust with respect to uncertainties on the mechanical parameters that characterize the model and secures global convergence.