Sampled observer-based adaptive output feedback fault-tolerant control for a class of strict-feedback nonlinear systems

This paper studies the sampled outputs-based adaptive fault-tolerant control problem for a class of strict-feedback uncertain nonlinear systems, where the nonlinear functions are allowed to include the unmeasured system states. Within the framework, a sampled output observer is introduced to jointly estimate the system states and parameters. By combining the estimated states and the supervisory switching strategy, an adaptive fault-tolerant controller is designed to achieve the desirable tracking performance. By using Lyapunov stability theory, it is proved that all the signals of the closed-loop systems are bounded and the tracking error converges to an adjustable neighbourhood of the origin eventually both in the fault free and faulty cases. Especially, if the outputs are available all the time, the proposed output feedback fault-tolerant control method can ensure the tracking error satisfy the prescribed performance bounds regardless of the faults. Finally, two examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.