Passive fault tolerant control of a new reconfigurable quadrotor

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to improve the control performance of a new reconfigurable quadrotor subject to change of configuration and under actuator Loss of Effectiveness (LOE) using Integral Sliding Mode Controller (ISMC). First, we present the design of the UAV which is capable of folding its arms instantaneously during the flight which result variation in its different parameters such as Center of Gravity (CoG), inertia and control matrix. Then, the ISMC controller based Passive Fault Tolerant Control (PFTC) is designed to control and stabilize the position and the attitude of the UAV in some possible configurations and under actuator fault conditions. The four servomotors used to rotate the quadrotor arms are controlled by PID controller. Finlay, we present simulation results using Matlab/Simulink environment which demonstrate the effectiveness and the robustness of the ISMC-PFTC controller compared to the regular SMC one.