A Model-Based Fault Diagnosis System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper addresses the problem of fault detection and isolation for helicopters used as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. First a model for a reduced-scale helicopter is presented, then this model is linearized and used to design unknown input observers for fault diagnosis. The developed system is tested and analyzed. The results prove that it represents an effective solution to fault diagnosis problems in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.