A Tilting-Rotor Enhanced Quadcopter Fault-Tolerant Control Based on Non-Linear Model Predictive Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fault-tolerant control method for tilt-rotor quadcopters using nonlinear model predictive control and an extended state observer to ensure stability after rotor failures.

Contribution

It presents a novel fault-tolerant control strategy combining nonlinear model predictive control with an extended state observer for tilt-rotor quadcopters.

Findings

Maintains position control after rotor failure

Outperforms traditional quadcopters in stability

Preserves yaw stability during faults

Abstract

This paper proposes a fault-tolerant control strategy based on a tilt-rotor quadcopter prototype, utilizing nonlinear model predictive control to maintain both attitude and position stability in the event of rotor failure. The control strategy employs an extended state observer to predict model deviations following a fault and adjusts the original model in the subsequent time step, thereby achieving active fault-tolerant control. The proposed method is evaluated through simulations and compared to both traditional quadcopter and tilt-rotor quadcopter without observer under identical conditions. The results demonstrate that the tilt-rotor quadcopter can maintain position control without sacrificing yaw stability, unlike traditional quadcopters.