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Fault-tolerant cooperative control for multiple UAVs based on sliding mode techniques

  • Research Paper
  • Special Focus on Formation Control of Unmanned Systems
  • Published:
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Abstract

This paper proposes a fault-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) design approach for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), where the outer-loop control and the inner-loop fault accommodation are explicitly considered. The reference signals for the inner-loop of the follower UAV can be directly produced by resorting to a proportional control. In the presence of actuator faults, the estimation of the fault information can be completed within finite time. Moreover, the control of the inner-loop is reconfigured based on the fault information adaptation and sliding mode techniques, such that the deleterious effects due to failed actuators can be compensated within finite time. Simulations of UAV cooperative flight are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of this FTCC scheme.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51575167, 61403407, 61573282, 61603130), Shaanxi Province Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 2015JZ020), Hunan Province Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 2017JJ3041), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 531107040965). The authors would like to thank the support from the Collaborative Innovation Center of Intelligent New Energy Vehicle and the Hunan Collaborative Innovation Center for Green Car. Thanks also to the associate editor and anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China

    Peng Li & Zhiqiang Zheng

  2. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, H3G 1M8, Canada

    Xiang Yu & Youmin Zhang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China

    Xiaoyan Peng

Authors
  1. Peng Li
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  2. Xiang Yu
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  3. Xiaoyan Peng
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  4. Zhiqiang Zheng
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  5. Youmin Zhang
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Correspondence to Youmin Zhang.

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Li, P., Yu, X., Peng, X. et al. Fault-tolerant cooperative control for multiple UAVs based on sliding mode techniques. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 60, 070204 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-016-9074-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-016-9074-8

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