Adaptive terminal sliding mode active fault-tolerant control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with application of aircraft wing model with actuator faults

In this paper, the adaptive finite-time fault-tolerant control (FTC) problem is investigated for uncertain nonlinear strict-feedback systems. The strict-feedback nonlinear system considered in this paper contains unknown nonlinear dynamics and actuator faults (both lock-in-place and loss of effectiveness). In this control process, adaptive laws are used to approximate unknown nonlinear functions. By using the sliding mode control technique and combining it with the adaptive backstepping control design, an adaptive terminal sliding mode FTC scheme is proposed. It is proved that the closed-loop system is finite-time stable and that the system output can track a given reference signal. Simulation results further show the efficacy of the designed control approach.