Trajectory tracking control for unmanned amphibious surface vehicles with actuator faults

In this paper, a fixed-time fault-tolerant control strategy is proposed for the trajectory tracking of aquatic–aerial unmanned amphibious vehicles (AquaUAVs) under multiple actuator faults. A switched error system is introduced to describe the AquaUAV trajectory tracking motion under actuator faults in different modes. A switched fixed-time extended state observer (FESO) is developed to observe the tracking errors of the vehicle and the actuator faults, and a fault-tolerant control strategy. The proposed composite controller not only ensures the stability of the system, but also compensates the faults of the actuator. Simulation and experiment results verify that the proposed control strategy can realize the trajectory tracking control of amphibious vehicle under the condition of multiple actuator faults.