Fault Diagnosis of an Unmanned Quadrotor Helicopter Based on Particle Filter

To address the problem of fault detection and diagnosis of an unmanned quadrotor helicopter (Qball-X4) in the presence of actuator faults, this paper presents a fault diagnosis method based on particle filter. The fault detection and state estimation based on the particle filter are used to control the altitude of the Qball-X4 with integration of a Linear Quadratic (LQ) technique. In the platform of the Qball-X4 helicopter the method is implemented and experimentally tested. The faults are modelled as losses in control effectiveness of motors (actuators). Three fault cases are investigated: loss of control effectiveness in one signal actuator, loss of control effectiveness in two actuators, and loss of control effectiveness in three actuators. Experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed method.