Geometric Fault-Tolerant Control of Quadrotors in Case of Rotor Failures: An Attitude Based Comparative Study

TL;DR

This paper develops a geometric fault-tolerant control method for quadrotors that maintains stability and tracking performance despite rotor failures, using attitude error metrics to optimize control design.

Contribution

It introduces an augmented geometric control strategy for quadrotors capable of handling complete rotor failures, with analysis of attitude error metrics for improved fault tolerance.

Findings

Simulation confirms effective trajectory tracking under rotor failures

Attitude error metrics influence fault-tolerant control performance

Proposed method enhances quadrotor reliability in failure scenarios

Abstract

The ability of aerial robots to operate in the presence of failures is crucial in various applications that demand continuous operations, such as surveillance, monitoring, and inspection. In this paper, we propose a fault-tolerant control strategy for quadrotors that can adapt to single and dual complete rotor failures. Our approach augments a classic geometric tracking controller on $SO(3)\times\mathbb{R}^3$ to accommodate the effects of rotor failures. We provide an in-depth analysis of several attitude error metrics to identify the most appropriate design choice for fault-tolerant control strategies. To assess the effectiveness of these metrics, we evaluate trajectory tracking accuracies. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach.