Multi-objective optimization in graceful performance degradation and its application in spacecraft attitude fault-tolerant control

Reducing the burden of the remaining actuators through decreasing the performance gracefully is an important field in active fault tolerant control. According to the literature, two important points have been identified in the works considering graceful performance degradation: 1) using single-objective optimization, 2) assuming an engineering insight into the performance of the faulty system. This paper has two contributions: First, it is shown that in some cases, single-objective optimization may not be able to provide a satisfactory solution for the problem. Second, a new systematic and general method is proposed to remove the need for the engineering insight. The proposed method is based on multi-objective optimization. Attitude tracking of a faulty spacecraft is considered as a case study. Simulation results show the advantages of the proposed methodology.