Active fault tolerant control for nonlinear systems with simultaneous actuator and sensor faults

The goal of this paper is to describe a novel fault tolerant tracking control (FTTC) strategy based on robust fault estimation and compensation of simultaneous actuator and sensor faults. Within the framework of fault tolerant control (FTC) the challenge is to develop an FTTC design strategy for nonlinear systems to tolerate simultaneous actuator and sensor faults that have bounded first time derivatives. The main contribution of this paper is the proposal of a new architecture based on a combination of actuator and sensor Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) proportional state estimators augmented with proportional and integral feedback (PPI) fault estimators together with a T-S dynamic output feedback control (TSDOFC) capable of time-varying reference tracking. Within this architecture the design freedom for each of the T-S estimators and the control system are available separately with an important consequence on robust L₂ norm fault estimation and robust L₂ norm closed-loop tracking performance. The FTTC strategy is illustrated using a nonlinear inverted pendulum example with time-varying tracking of a moving linear position reference. Keyword

Disturbance/uncertainty estimation and attenuation techniques in PMSM drives–a survey

This paper gives a comprehensive overview on disturbance/uncertainty estimation and attenuation (DUEA) techniques in permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drives. Various disturbances and uncertainties in PMSM and also other alternating current (AC) motor drives are first reviewed which shows they have different behaviors and appear in different control loops of the system. The existing DUEA and other relevant control methods in handling disturbances and uncertainties widely used in PMSM drives, and their latest developments are then discussed and summarized. It also provides in-depth analysis of the relationship between these advanced control methods in the context of PMSM systems. When dealing with uncertainties,it is shown that DUEA has a different but complementary mechanism to widely used robust control and adaptive control. The similarities and differences in disturbance attenuation of DUEA and other promising methods such as internal model control and output regulation theory have been analyzed in detail. The wide applications of these methods in different AC motor drives (in particular in PMSM drives) are categorized and summarized. Finally the paper ends with the discussion on future directions in this area

Finite-time adaptive prescribed performance DSC for pure feedback nonlinear systems with input quantization and unmodeled dynamics

This paper presents a new prescribed performance-based finite-time adaptive tracking control scheme for a class of pure-feedback nonlinear systems with input quantization and dynamical uncertainties. To process the input signal, a new quantizer combining the advantages of a hysteresis quantizer and uniform quantizer has been used. Radial basis function neural networks have been utilized to approximate unknown nonlinear smooth functions. An auxiliary system has been employed to estimate unmodeled dynamics by producing a dynamic signal. By introducing a hyperbolic tangent function and performance function, the tracking error was made to fall within the prescribed time-varying constraints. Using modified dynamic surface control (DSC) technology and a finite-time control method, a novel finite-time controller has been designed, and the singularity problem of differentiating each virtual control scheme in the existing finite-time control scheme has been removed. Theoretical analysis shows that all signals in the closed-loop system are semi-globally practically finite-time stable, and that the tracking error converges to a prescribed time-varying region. Simulation results for two numerical examples have been provided to illustrate the validity of the proposed control method

Investigations of Model-Free Sliding Mode Control Algorithms including Application to Autonomous Quadrotor Flight

Sliding mode control is a robust nonlinear control algorithm that has been used to implement tracking controllers for unmanned aircraft systems that are robust to modeling uncertainty and exogenous disturbances, thereby providing excellent performance for autonomous operation. A significant advance in the application of sliding mode control for unmanned aircraft systems would be adaptation of a model-free sliding mode control algorithm, since the most complex and time-consuming aspect of implementation of sliding mode control is the derivation of the control law with incorporation of the system model, a process required to be performed for each individual application of sliding mode control. The performance of four different model-free sliding mode control algorithms was compared in simulation using a variety of aerial system models and real-world disturbances (e.g. the effects of discretization and state estimation). The two best performing algorithms were shown to exhibit very similar behavior. These two algorithms were implemented on a quadrotor (both in simulation and using real-world hardware) and the performance was compared to a traditional PID-based controller using the same state estimation algorithm and control setup. Simulation results show the model-free sliding mode control algorithms exhibit similar performance to PID controllers without the tedious tuning process. Comparison between the two model-free sliding mode control algorithms showed very similar performance as measured by the quadratic means of tracking errors. Flight testing showed that while a model-free sliding mode control algorithm is capable of controlling realworld hardware, further characterization and significant improvements are required before it is a viable alternative to conventional control algorithms. Large tracking errors were observed for both the model-free sliding mode control and PID based flight controllers and the performance was characterized as unacceptable for most applications. The poor performance of both controllers suggests tracking errors could be attributed to errors in state estimation, which effectively introduce unknown dynamics into the feedback loop. Further testing with improved state estimation would allow for more conclusions to be drawn about the performance characteristics of the model-free sliding mode control algorithms