Output feedback based adaptive robust fault-tolerant control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems

An adaptive robust approach for actuator fault-tolerant control of a class of uncertain nonlinear systems is proposed. The two chief ways in which the system performance can degrade following an actuator-fault are undesirable transients and unacceptably large steady-state tracking errors. Adaptive control based schemes can achieve good final tracking accuracy in spite of change in system parameters following an actuator fault, and robust control based designs can achieve guaranteed transient response. However, neither adaptive control nor robust control based fault-tolerant designs can address both the issues associated with actuator faults. In the present work, an adaptive robust fault-tolerant control scheme is claimed to solve both the problems, as it seamlessly integrates adaptive and robust control design techniques. Comparative simulation studies are performed using a nonlinear hypersonic aircraft model to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme over a robust adaptive control based fault-tolerant scheme.