Robust Fault-Tolerant Control Allocation for

an Input-Redundant Aircraft
L. Cui, Ph.D. 1; Y. Yang 2; and Y. H. Liu 3
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Abstract: A new scheme of robust fault-tolerant control allocation is designed for a discrete-time aerodynamic model in a research envi-
ronment (ADMIRE) aircraft model in this paper. The control strategy has two steps. In the first step, a discrete-time robust virtual controller is
designed to produce three axis moments. In the second step, the fault information will be used to reconfigure the robust fault-tolerant control
allocation once an actuator fault is detected. A fault-detection scheme is assumed to exist for estimating the actuator fault. The robust virtual
controller and the proposed robust fault-tolerant control allocation are applied to a discrete-time ADMIRE aircraft model. Simulation results
demonstrate that the reference signals can be well tracked when the control surface is damaged. Thus the proposed robust fault-tolerant
control allocation scheme is valid for input-redundant systems to recover from control surface failure, and simultaneously guarantee robust-
ness to the uncertain control effectiveness matrix and disturbance. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000528. © 2015 American Society
of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Fault tolerant control; Control allocation; Flight control; Robust control.

Introduction
Over the last three decades, the growing demand for safety and
reliability in control engineering system, especially in overactuated
flight control systems, has attracted many scholars to study fault-
tolerant control (FTC) systems (Patton 1997; Zhang et al. 2007;
Zhang and Jiang 2008; Lombaerts et al. 2009). The main objective
of FTC is to maintain a certain performance of a closed-loop con-
trol system when a fault or failure occurs. Two approaches can be
distinguished in this area: passive and active approaches. In the pas-
sive FTC (PFTC) approach, a fixed controller is designed so that it
will maintain stability when fault or failure occurs. In contrast, a
fault detection and isolation scheme is introduced in active FTC
(AFTC). Whenever a fault is detected and isolated, a supervisory
system takes action and modifies the structure and/or the parame-
ters of the closed-loop control system.
Modern flight control systems are designed with redundant ac-
tuators to achieve safety and reliability (Ducard 2009; Zhang et al.
2008). This introduces more inputs to design AFTC systems for
maintaining stability and certain performance in the presence of
faults and failures. Control allocation (CA) is one of the significant
approaches to manage actuator redundancy for different control strat-
egies of handling actuator faults (Alwi and Edwards 2008). The
advantage of using CA for AFTC is that when fault occurs in the
1
Engineer, Beijing Institute of Control and Electronic Technology, State
Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, Dept. of Mechanics
and Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking Univ., Beijing
100871, P.R. China. E-mail: cuilei2007@pku.edu.cn
2
Associate Professor, State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Com-
plex Systems, Dept. of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, College
of Engineering, Peking Univ., Beijing 100871, P.R. China (corresponding
author). E-mail: yy@mech.pku.edu.cn
3
Engineer, Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering, Beijing
100094, P.R. China. E-mail: carilina122@163.com
Note. This manuscript was submitted on May 7, 2012; approved on May
29, 2015; published online on August 11, 2015. Discussion period open until
January 11, 2016; separate discussions must be submitted for individual pa-
pers. This paper is part of the Journal of Aerospace Engineering, © ASCE,
ISSN 0893-1321/04015042(10)/$25.00.
actuator, the virtual controller remains unchanged and the virtual con-
trol signal is redistributed to the available redundant control surfaces.
Previously, researchers have intensively investigated the AFTC,
incorporating the controller design with CA. Marwaha and Valasek
(2011) presented an approach to fault-tolerant control allocation for
a Mars entry vehicle by using adaptive control. Alwi and Edwards
(2008) studied a sliding mode controller and an online control
allocation module for AFTC. Fault-tolerant control allocation for
a thrust controller floating platform using parametric programming
has also been studied (Spjtvold and Johasen 2009). Casavola and
Garone (2010) proposed a fault-tolerant adaptive control allocation
scheme for overactuated systems by using an ad hoc online param-
eter estimator to perform online control reconfiguration. An and
Kwon (2010) designed robust control allocation, considering
the uncertainties in the system as an unknown input disturbance,
and a sliding mode controller is used to be robust to the uncertain-
ties with the existing method quadratic optimization employed to
design control allocation module. Ye et al. (2009) showed a control
allocation scheme of robust fault-tolerant control, where the robust-
ness to uncertainty is also considered in the controller design, and
the control reallocation is designed by the cascaded generalized
inverse method (Bordignon 1996). The purpose of the cited liter-
atures concerning AFTC using CA is to design a virtual controller
and use the estimated fault signal to tune the parameters in CA for
guaranteeing stability and required performance. The virtual con-
troller remains unchanged even when a fault occurs. Previous lit-
erature only considers robustness to uncertainty in the controller
design; however, it is directly considered in the control allocation
model of our new scheme.
The aerodynamic parameter variation can be considered as a
parameter uncertainty for an aircraft. Thus, uncertainty exists in
the control effectiveness matrix of control allocation. To deal
with the problem of FTC for a faulty aircraft, a linear robust fault-
tolerant CA (RFTCA) is proposed in this paper. In a previous study
(Cui and Yang 2011), robust least squares CA (RLSCA) was in-
vestigated. Further studies of RLSCA, a new AFTC architecture,
including robust virtual controller and RFTCA, is presented for
a discrete-time aerodynamic model in a research environment
(ADMIRE) aircraft system. The novelty of this paper is to extend the

© ASCE 04015042-1 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

 existing fault-tolerant control allocation scheme to the case wherein
uncertainties are considered in the control effectiveness matrix. The
feedback and feedforward controllers are designed to produce vir-
tual control moments, and the reconfigurable RFTCA is used to
redistribute the virtual control moments to the healthy control sur-
faces with the estimated fault signal. With the assumption that the
fault is estimated by a fault detection (FD) block, the AFTC for a
discrete-time ADMIRE aircraft will be realized.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, the problem Fig. 1. Robust fault tolerant control allocation
formulation is stated. Second, the basic discrete-time H2 =H ∞ con-
trol theory is applied to design a feedback controller, and a feedfor-
ward controller is derived for tracking reference signals, thus the
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the actuator is partially damaged. Assume that the values of

virtual control law is produced by the outputs of feedback and feed-
estimated faults f̂ i ; ði ¼ 1; : : : ; pÞ are already obtained by a FD
forward controllers. Third, a reconfigurable RFTCA is proposed.
algorithm, and they will be directly used to adapt the parameters
Fourth, the proposed AFTC scheme is implemented in a set of linear
of reconfigurable RFTCA.
discrete-time equations obtained when an ADMIRE aircraft per-
Define that
forms in an equilibrium point. Finally, conclusions are presented.
The following notations will be used throughout this paper. Rn
and Rn×m denote, respectively, the n-dimensional Euclidean space vðkÞ ¼ BðΘÞWuðkÞ ð2Þ
and the set of all n × m matrices. The superscript T indicates the
transpose. I is an identity matrix with appropriate dimensions. For a where virtual control vector vðkÞ ∈ Rs represents the three axis
matrix P, P > 0 (respectively, P < 0) indicates that it is real sym- moments. Then the discrete-time linear aircraft system (1) can
metric and positive definite (respectively, negative definite). be rewritten as

xðk þ 1Þ ¼ AðΘÞxðkÞ þ Bddes vðkÞ þ Bd dðkÞ

Problem Formulation
y0 ðkÞ ¼ C0 xðkÞ yðkÞ ¼ CxðkÞ ð3Þ
It is well known that faults can be classified into two types: sensor
faults and actuator faults. Only actuator faults are considered in
this paper. Fig. 1 shows that (1) the feedback gain matrix K and the feed-
Consider a discrete-time linear uncertain aircraft system subject forward gain matrix K ref are combined to produce three axis mo-
to the actuator fault as ments; (2) RFTCA is reconfigured by adapting the parameters in
fault weighting matrix W; and (3) the FD algorithm estimates the
xðk þ 1Þ ¼ AðΘÞxðkÞ þ Bddes BðΘÞWuðkÞ þ Bd dðkÞ fault signal for obtaining the fault weighting matrix W. If these
three steps are respectively well-designed, AFTC will be realized
y0 ðkÞ ¼ C0 xðkÞ yðkÞ ¼ CxðkÞ ð1Þ for the ADMIRE aircraft.
The main purpose of AFTC for an ADMIRE aircraft is to recon-
where xðkÞ ∈ Rn = state vector; uðkÞ ∈ Rm = control input and rep-
figure the RFTCA while leaving the controller unchanged under the
resents the forces that the thrusters and control surfaces produce to
condition of a fault occurring in the control surface. When control
control the attitude; dðkÞ ∈ Rt = unknown input disturbance;
surfaces are damaged, a system with redundant control inputs can
y0 ðkÞ ∈ Rp and yðkÞ ∈ Rp = respectively, measurement output
recover from failures and the reference signals are well tracked.
and controlled output; AðΘÞ and BðΘÞ = uncertain system matrices,
Thus the main focus of the proposed AFTC scheme is a reconfig-
and Bddes , Bd , C, and C0 = system matrices with appropriate
urable robust fault-tolerant control reallocation.
dimensions.
The uncertain matrix AðΘÞ is polytopic i.e.
X s
Robust Virtual Controller Design
AðΘÞ ¼ θ̄i Ai
i¼1
Ps Feedback Controller Design
with θ̄i > 0, and i¼1 θ̄i ¼ 1.
The uncertain matrix BðΘÞ is linear affine i.e. The feedback controller d1 ðkÞ ¼ KxðkÞ for a discrete-time AD-
X
q MIRE aircraft model is designed by the following given theorem.
BðΘÞ ¼ B þ θi B i Theorem 1: For a given scalar γ > 0 and the discrete-time lin-
i¼1 ear system (3), if there exists a group of solutions α ∈ R; X ∈
with θ ¼ ½θ1 ; : : : ; θq T ∈ Rq and kθk ≤ ρ. Rn×n ; V ∈ Rs×n ; N ∈ Rt×t to the following problem
The fault weighting matrix W is defined as min TraceðNÞ
α;×; V;N
2 3 2 3
f1 0 · · · 0 −rX 0 ðAi X þ Bddes VÞT ðCXÞT ðC0 XÞT
6 7 6 7
6 0 f2 : : : 0 7 6  −αγ 2 I αBTd 0 0 7
6 7 6 7
W p×p ¼ 6 . .. .. 7 6 7
6 .. . . 7 × s:t:ðiÞ:6   −rX 0 0 7<0
4 · · · 5 6 7
6    −αI 0 7
0 0 : : : fp 4 5
    −I
where fi ∈ ½0,1, f i ¼ 0 denotes that the actuator is completely
damaged; f i ¼ 1 denotes that the actuator is healthy, otherwise ð4Þ

© ASCE 04015042-2 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

  
−N BTd NðuÞ ≜ ðBWu − ddes Þ ð8bÞ
ðiiÞ: <0 ð5Þ
−X

then d1 ðkÞ ¼ VX −1 xðkÞ is the H2 =H∞ optimal guaranteed perfor- where the uncertainty is put into MðuÞ, and the nominal control
mance virtual control law, and the poles of the closed-loop system effectiveness matrix is put into NðuÞ.
are assigned to a circle ð0; rÞ, 0 < r < 1. Theorem 2: The reconfigurable RFTCA problem has an
Proof: The proof is similar to the results in Yu (2002), thus it is optimal solution ðλ; τ ; urRFTCA Þ if the following matrix inequality
omitted here. is solved:
Remark 1: TraceðNÞ is related to the H2 performance index. " #
The Eq. (5) can be rewritten as TraceðBTd XBd Þ < TraceðNÞ, and τ I − ρ2 M T ðuÞMðuÞ −ρMT ðuÞNðuÞ
minimizing TraceðNÞ is to minimize the upper bound of H 2 min λ s:t: >0
performance index.
u≤u≤ū;λ;τ −ρN T ðuÞMðuÞ λ − τ − N T ðuÞNðuÞ
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ð9Þ
Feedforward Controller Design
where the variable u ∈ Rm and the variables λ ∈ R; τ ∈ R are
The nominal system is represented as
positive.
Proof: In the presence of actuator fault, the squared
xðk þ 1Þ ¼ AxðkÞ þ Bddes ddes ðkÞ yðkÞ ¼ CxðkÞ worst-case residual is obtained by using the definitions NðuÞ
and MðuÞ
If the outputs have tracked the reference signals and the aircraft per-
forms at an equilibrium, the nominal system must satisfy the following:
r2f ðuÞ ¼ max kBðΘÞWuðkÞ − ddes ðkÞk2 ¼ max kθMðuÞ þ NðuÞk2
kθk⩽ρ kθk⩽ρ
xs ðk þ 1Þ ¼ Axs ðkÞ þ Bddes ddes ðkÞ yðkÞ ¼ Cxs ðkÞ ð6Þ ¼ max ðθMðuÞ þ NðuÞÞT ðθMðuÞ þ NðuÞÞ
θT θ≤ρ2

where the xs ðkÞ = stable trim point; xs ðk þ 1Þ ¼ xs ðkÞ, ¼ max ðθ2 M T ðuÞMðuÞ þ 2θM T ðuÞNðuÞ þ N T ðuÞNðuÞÞ
and yðkÞ ¼ rðkÞ. θT θ≤ρ2
 T  
Substituting the virtual control law ddes ðkÞ ¼ dref ðkÞ þ KxðkÞ M ðuÞMðuÞ M T ðuÞNðuÞ θ
into Eq. (6) yields ¼ max ½ θT 1
θT θ≤ρ2 N T ðuÞMðuÞ N T ðuÞNðuÞ 1
Cð−Bddes K − A þ IÞ−1 Bddes dref ðkÞ ¼ rðkÞ
With θ~ ¼ θ=ρ, it yields that
Moreover, it is obtained that  2 T  
ρ M ðuÞMðuÞ ρM T ðuÞNðuÞ θ~
r2f ðuÞ ¼ max ½ θ~ T 1
dref ðkÞ ¼ ½Cð−Bddes K − A þ IÞ−1 Bddes −1 rðkÞ T
θ~ θ≤1
~ ρN T ðuÞMðuÞ N T ðuÞNðuÞ 1
ð10Þ
Denote that K ref ¼ ½Cð−Bddes K − A þ IÞ−1 Bddes −1 , then the
feedforward controller dref ðkÞ ¼ K ref rðkÞ is obtained. In order to minimize the upper bound of squared worst case
Finally, the stability and tracking property of the closed-loop residual (10), it must satisfy r2f < λ, i.e.
system are guaranteed by the robust virtual control law ddes ðkÞ ¼
K ref rðkÞ þ KxðkÞ.   
½ θ~ T
ρ2 M T ðuÞMðuÞ ρM T ðuÞNðuÞ θ~ < λ
1
ρN T ðuÞMðuÞ N T ðuÞNðuÞ 1
Robust Fault-Tolerant Control Allocation
there exists a scalar τ ≥ 0 such that
As is well known, the uncertainty of the aerodynamic coefficient
in the control effectiveness matrix has a known structure in flight   
control system (Frank and David 1999). Therefore, the following
½ θ~ T
τ I − ρ2 M T ðuÞMðuÞ −ρM T ðuÞNðuÞ θ~ > 0
1
reconfigurable RFTCA problem in the presence of actuator fault is −ρN ðuÞMðuÞ
T
λ − τ − N T ðuÞNðuÞ 1
considered.
Problem: In the presence of actuator fault, find the
optimal reconfigurable RFTCA solution urRFTCA in the interval This condition can be rewritten as
of ½u; ū as
 
τ I − ρ2 M T ðuÞMðuÞ −ρM T ðuÞNðuÞ
urRFTCA ¼ arg min max kBðΘÞWuðkÞ − ddes ðkÞk ð7Þ >0 ð11Þ
u⩽u⩽ū kθk⩽ρ
−ρN T ðuÞMðuÞ λ − τ − N T ðuÞNðuÞ

where ρ = the upper bound of the uncertainty Θ; and ū and u = the
upper and lower bounds of the control vector u.
In order to obtain the optimal solution urRFTCA to the problem
of reconfigurable RFTCA, the following definitions are introduced:
MðuÞ ≜ ½B1 Wu; : : : ; Bq Wu
then the conclusion is obtained.
The matrix inequality in Theorem 2 is nonlinear. Therefore, the
following Theorem 3 is obtained, and the optimal urRFTCA can be
found by solving the linear matrix inequality (LMI).
Theorem 3: The reconfigurable RFTCA has an optimal solu-
ð8aÞ tion ðλ; τ ; urRFTCA Þ if the following is satisfied:

© ASCE 04015042-3 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

 2 3
I ρMðuÞ NðuÞ
6 7
minλ s:t:6
4 ρM ðuÞ
T
τI 0 7>0
5
λ;u;τ
N T ðuÞ 0 λ−τ
2 3 2 3
ðū − uÞ ξ 1 T
0 ··· 0 ðu − uÞT ξ 1 0 ··· 0
6 7 6 7
6 0 ðū − uÞT ξ 2 ··· 0 7 6 0 ðu − uÞT ξ 2 ··· 0 7
6 7 6 7
×6 .. .. .. .. 7 > 06 .. .. .. .. 7>0 ð12Þ
6 . . . . 7 6 . . . . 7
4 5 4 5
0 0 ··· ðū − uÞT ξ m 0 0 ··· ðu − uÞT ξ m
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where the control vector is uT ¼ ½u1 ; : : : ; um ; the upper and Using the Schur complement lemma, it is easy to obtain
lower bounds of the control vectors are ūT ¼ ½ū1 ; : : : ; ūm ,
uT ¼ ½u1 ; : : : ; um ; and ξ i = an unit column vector and satis-
2 3
fies ½ξ 1 ; · · · ; ξ m  ¼ I m×m . I ρMðuÞ NðuÞ
Proof: Eq. (11) can be rewritten as 6 7
4 ρM T ðuÞ τI 0 5>0
 
τ I − ρ2 M T ðuÞMðuÞ −ρM T ðuÞNðuÞ N T ðuÞ 0 λ−τ
−ρN T ðuÞMðuÞ λ−τ − N T ðuÞNðuÞ
   2 
τI 0 ρ MðuÞT MðuÞ ρMT ðuÞNðuÞ thus the non-LMI is transformed to an LMI.
¼ −
0 λ−τ ρM T ðuÞN T ðuÞ N T ðuÞNðuÞ In order to add the constraints to u by LMIs, the identity matrix
    is given as I m×m ¼ ½ξ 1 ; : : : ; ξ m . Rewrite the constraints u < u < ū
τI 0 ρM T ðuÞ
¼ − ½ ρMðuÞ NðuÞ  > 0 into two parts −ū < −u and u < u. Then it can be transformed into
0 λ−τ N T ðuÞ two LMIs:

2 3 2 3
ū1 − u1 0 ··· 0 ðū − uÞT ξ 1 0 ··· 0
6 0 ū2 − u2 ··· 0 7 6 0 ðū − uÞT ξ 2 ··· 0 7
6 7 6 7
−ū < −u ⇔ 6 .. .. .. .. 7>0⇔6 .. .. .. .. 7>0
4 . . . . 5 4 . . . . 5
0 0 ··· ūm − um 0 0 ··· ðū − uÞT ξ m
2 3 2 3
u1 − u1 0 ··· 0 ðu − uÞT ξ 1 0 ··· 0
6 0 u2 − u2 ··· 0 7 6 0 ðu − uÞT ξ 2 ··· 0 7
6 7 6 7
u<u ⇔6 .. .. .. .. 7>0⇔6 .. .. .. .. 7>0
4 . . . . 5 4 . . . . 5
0 0 ··· um − um 0 0 ··· ðu − uÞT ξ m

The proof is completed.

Simulation Example xðk þ 1Þ ¼ AðΘÞxðkÞ þ Bddes BðΘÞuðkÞ þ Bd dðkÞ

A continuous-time linear ADMIRE aircraft model, which describes y0 ðkÞ ¼ C0 xðkÞ yðkÞ ¼ CxðkÞ
a small generic fighter aircraft with one engine, is given in Fan et al.
(2011). Adiscrete-time linear ADMIRE aircraft model was ob-
The state vector x and control input vector u are represented
tained using the commercial software MATLAB v7.0 to testify
as
the proposed robust fault-tolerant control allocation scheme, which
is the combination of the robust virtual controller and proposed re-
configurable RFTCA. x ¼ ½α β p q r ;
u ¼ ½ δ rc δ lc δroe δ rie δ loe δ lie δr 
Discrete-Time Linear Aircraft Model
The discrete-time linear ADMIRE aircraft model (Forssell and where α = angle of attack (deg); β = sideslip angle (deg); p = roll
Nilsson 2005) is given by rate (deg =s); q = pitch rate (deg =s); r = roll rate (deg =s); δ rc and

© ASCE 04015042-4 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

 δ lc = deflections of right and left canards (deg), δ roe and δ loe = π
u ¼ ½ −10 −10 −15 −15 −15 −15 −15 T ×
deflections of right and left outer elevons (deg), δrie and δ lie = de- 180
π
flections of right and left inner elevons (deg); and δ r = deflection of ū ¼ ½10 10 15 15 15 15 15 T ×
180
rudder (deg).
The upper and lower bounds of control signals ui ; i ¼ 1; : : : ; 7 The system matrices of the nominal discrete-time ADMIRE aircraft
are given by model have been obtained at Mach 0.22 and an altitude of 3,000 m as

2 3
0.9947 1.364 × 10−4 1.51 × 10−7 0.009727 −6.591 × 10−7
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6 7
6 0 0.9987 2.207 × 10−3 0 −9.638 × 10−3 7
6 7
6 7
A¼6 0 −0.1045 0.99 0 0.006644 7;
6 7
6 0.02609 −2.812 × 10 −5
−3.177 × 10 −8
0.9951 1.387 × 10−7 7
4 5
−3 −4
0 7.112 × 10 −9.255 × 10 0 0.9978
2 3 2 3
1.0 5.039 × 10−10 4.872 × 10−5 −2.199 × 10−9
6 7 6 7
6 4.967 7 6 1.105 × 10−5
0 −4.823 × 10−5 7
6 7 6 7
6 7 −3 6 7
Bd ¼ 6 7.724 7 × 10 ; Bddes ¼ 6 9.95 × 10−3
0 3.244 × 10−5 7;
6 7 6 7
6 6.116 7 6 −1.071 × 10−10
9.975 × 10−3 4.675 × 10−10 7
4 5 4 5
8.005 −4.65 × 10−6 0 9.989 × 10−3
2 3
0.6031 −0.6031 −2.2849 −1.9574 1.9574 2.2849 1.4871
6 7
B ¼ 4 0.8266 0.8266 −0.4628 −0.8107 −0.8107 −0.4628 0.0024 5; B̄ ¼ Bddes  B;
−0.2615 0.2615 −0.0944 −0.1861 0.1861 0.0944 −0.8823
2 3
1 0 0 0 0 0
6 7
C0 ¼ C ¼ 6
40 1 0 0 0 05
7
0 0 1 0 0 0

The control input matrix B̄ is 5 × 7, the dimension of input ex- disturbance is set to be d ∼ Nð0,0.3Þ. The upper bound of uncer-
ceeds the degree of freedom, which means that the ADMIRE model tainty is chosen to be ρ ¼ 0.1.
is redundant in the control inputs and the reconfigurable RFTCA Fault Case 1: Assume that the control surface δ rie is completely
can be applied. The AFTC for the discrete-time linear ADMIRE damaged at the time t ¼ 6.5 s, the control surface δ r is 20% dam-
aircraft model is realized by redistributing the virtual control mo- aged at the time t ¼ 6.5 s and others stay healthy as
ments to the healthy control inputs.
The feedback and feedforward gain matrices are designed as  
1; t ∈ ½0,6.5s; 1; t ∈ ½0,6.5s;
f4 ¼ f7 ¼
2 3 0; t ∈ ð6.5,15s: 0.8; t ∈ ð6.5,15s:
0.0059 10.5150 0.9924 −0.0107 −0.5987
6 7
K ¼ 4 −2.9612 0.0131 −0.0029 1.1171 0.0126 5
Fault Case 2: Assume that the control surface δ lie is completely
0.0064 −0.6908 0.0622 −0.0115 0.3510 damaged at the time t ¼ 8.5 s, the control surface δ r is 30% dam-
2 3
0.0110 0.0196 1.0000 aged at the time t ¼ 8.5 s and others stay healthy as
6 7
K ref ¼ 4 0.9520 −0.0009 0 5
 
0.0117 −1.0140 0.2293 1; t ∈ ½0,8.5s; 1; t ∈ ½0,8.5s;
f6 ¼ f7 ¼
0; t ∈ ð8.5,15s: 0.7; t ∈ ð8.5,15s:
and the robust virtual control law ddes ðkÞ ¼ KxðkÞ þ K ref rðkÞ is
obtained. Figs. 2 and 3 show the simulation results of tracking perfor-
mance to angle of attack α, sideslip angle β, and roll rate p; the
reference tracking performance in the presence of the actuator fault
Simulation Results
is similar to the one without fault.
The designed robust virtual controller and reconfigurable RFTCA Figs. 4 and 5 show that the reconfigurable RFTCA redistributes
are testified in a discrete-time linear ADMIRE aircraft model. The the virtual control moments to other healthy control surfaces δ rc ,

© ASCE 04015042-5 J. Aerosp. Eng.

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 10 1.5
Ref Ref
Fault free Fault free
8 1
Fault Fault

6 0.5
α (deg)

β (deg)
4
0

2
−0.5
0
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−1
−2
−1.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(a) Time(s) (b) Time(s)

4 3.5
Ref Fault free
3 Fault free 3 Fault
Fault
2.5
2
2
q (deg/s)
p (deg/s)

1
1.5
0
1
−1
0.5

−2 0

−3 −0.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(c) Time(s) (d) Time(s)

0.6
Fault free
0.5 Fault

0.4

0.3
r(deg/s)

0.2

0.1

−0.1

−0.2
0 10 20 30 40 50
(e) Time(s)

Fig. 2. States of the ADMIRE aircraft using proposed robust fault-tolerant control allocation: Fault Case 1

δ lc , δroe , δ lie , and δ r when the faults occur in the control surfaces control effectiveness matrix, and the reference tracking perfor-
δ rie and δ loe . mance is guaranteed. Thus the robust controller and reconfigurable
According to the simulation results of two fault cases, the pro- RFTCA are valid to the discrete-time linear ADMIRE aircraft
posed reconfigurable RFTCA is robust to the uncertainty in the for AFTC.

© ASCE 04015042-6 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

 1.5
Ref Ref
2 Fault free Fault free
Fault Fault
1
0

0.5
−2
α (deg)

β (deg)
0
−4

−0.5
−6
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−8 −1

−10 −1.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(a) Time(s) (b) Time(s)

4 0.5
Ref Fault free
Fault free Fault
0
3 Fault

−0.5
2
−1
p (deg/s)

q (deg/s)

1
−1.5
0
−2

−1
−2.5

−2 −3

−3 −3.5
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(c) Time(s) (d) Time(s)

0.2
Fault free
Fault
0.1

−0.1
r (deg/s)

−0.2

−0.3

−0.4

−0.5

−0.6
0 10 20 30 40 50
(e) Time(s)

Fig. 3. States of the ADMIRE aircraft using proposed robust fault tolerant control allocation: Fault Case 2

© ASCE 04015042-7 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

 15 15
Fault free Fault free
Fault Fault
10 Bound 10 Bound

5 5
δrc(deg)

δlc(deg)
0 0

−5 −5

−10 −10
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−15 −15
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(a) Time(s) (b) Time(s)

20 20
Fault free Fault free
15 Fault 15 Fault
Bound Bound
10 10

5 5
δroe(deg)

δrie(deg)
0 0

−5 −5

−10 −10

−15 −15

−20 −20
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(c) Time(s) (d) Time(s)

20 20
Fault free Fault free
15 Fault 15 Fault
Bound Bound
10 10

5 5
δloe(deg)
δlie(deg)

0 0

−5 −5

−10 −10

−15 −15

−20 −20
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(e) Time(s) (f) Time(s)

20
Fault free
15 Fault
Bound
10

5
δr(deg)

−5

−10

−15

−20
0 10 20 30 40 50
(g) Time(s)

Fig. 4. Deflections of control surfaces: Fault Case 1

© ASCE 04015042-8 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

 15 15
Fault free Fault free
Fault Fault
Bound Bound
10 10

δrc(deg) 5 5

δlc(deg)
0 0

−5 −5

−10 −10
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−15 −15
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(a) Time(s) (b) Time(s)
20 20
Fault free Fault free
Fault Fault
15 Bound 15 Bound

10 10

5 5
δroe(deg)

δrie(deg)
0 0

−5 −5

−10 −10

−15 −15

−20 −20
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(c) Time(s) (d) Time(s)
20 20
Fault free Fault free
Fault Fault
15 Bound 15 Bound

10 10

5 5
δloe(deg)
δlie(deg)

0 0

−5 −5

−10 −10

−15 −15

−20 −20
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
(e) Time(s) (f) Time(s)

20
Fault free
Fault
15 Bound

10

5
δr(deg)

−5

−10

−15

−20
0 10 20 30 40 50
(g) Time(s)

Fig. 5. Deflections of control surfaces: Fault Case 2

© ASCE 04015042-9 J. Aerosp. Eng.

J. Aerosp. Eng., 2016, 29(2): 04015042

 Conclusions
In this study, a proposed AFTC scheme using reconfigurable
RFTCA is investigated for a discrete-time linear ADMIRE aircraft
model. A virtual control law is produced by the outputs of feedback
and feedforward controllers, and a reconfigurable RFTCA is
proposed to redistribute the virtual control moments to the available
control surfaces when an actuator fault occurs. According to the
simulation results, it is concluded that (1) the reference signal
tracking performs well, (2) a disturbance is rejected, (3) the
reconfigurable RFTCA is effective to redistribute the virtual control
moments to the healthy control surfaces in the presence of an ac-
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tuator fault, and (4) the closed-loop system is robust to uncertainty,
especially uncertainty in the control effectiveness matrix.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Basic Research Program of
China (973 Program) 2012CB821202, National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grants 61174052, 61473004, and
61433001.
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