Reference Governor-Based Fault-Tolerant Constrained Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel fault-tolerant control scheme using an advanced Reference Governor variant, AORG, integrated with fault detection and reconfiguration to ensure constrained system performance and aircraft safety.

Contribution

The paper proposes the At Once Reference Governor (AORG) for improved fault-tolerant control, integrating it with fault detection and reconfiguration for constrained linear systems.

Findings

AORG effectively enforces constraints and tracking in simulations.

The scheme detects faults with high probability.

It maintains aircraft viability despite damage.

Abstract

This paper presents a fault-tolerant control scheme for constrained linear systems. First, a new variant of the Reference Governor (RG) called At Once Reference Governor (AORG) is introduced. The AORG is distinguished from the conventional RG by computing the Auxiliary Reference (AR) sequence so that to optimize performance over a prescribed time interval instead of only at the current time instant; this enables the integration of the AORG with fault detection schemes. In particular, it is shown that, when the AORG is combined with a Multi-Model Adaptive Estimator (MMAE), the AR sequence can be determined such that the tracking properties are guaranteed and constraints are satisfied at all times, while the detection performance is optimized, i.e., faults can be detected with a high probability of correctness. In addition a reconfiguration scheme is presented that ensures system viability despite the presence of faults based on recoverable sets. Simulations on a Boeing 747-100 aircraft model are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the AORG scheme in enforcing constraints and tracking the desired roll and side-slip angles. The effectiveness of the presented fault-tolerant control scheme in maintaining the airplane viability in the presence of damaged vertical stabilizer is also demonstrated.