Fault–Tolerant Tracking Control for a Non–Linear Twin–Rotor System Under Ellipsoidal Bounding

Abstract A novel fault-tolerant tracking control scheme based on an adaptive robust observer for non-linear systems is proposed. Additionally, it is presumed that the non-linear system may be faulty, i.e., affected by actuator and sensor faults along with the disturbances, simultaneously. Accordingly, the stability of the robust observer as well as the fault-tolerant tracking controller is achieved by using the ℋ∞ approach. Furthermore, unknown actuator and sensor faults and states are bounded by the uncertainty intervals for estimation quality assessment as well as reliable fault diagnosis. This means that narrow intervals accompany better estimation quality. Thus, to cope with the above difficulty, it is assumed that the disturbances are over-bounded by an ellipsoid. Consequently, the performance and correctness of the proposed fault-tolerant tracking control scheme are verified by using a non-linear twin-rotor aerodynamical laboratory system.