Integrated design of fault-tolerant control for flight control systems using observer and fuzzy logic

Abstract

Purpose Fault detection, isolation and reconfiguration of the flight control system is an important problem to obtain healthy flight. This paper aims to propose an integrated approach for aircraft fault-tolerant control. Design/methodology/approach The integrated structure includes a Kalman filter to obtain without noise, a full order observer for sensor fault detection, a GOS (generalized observer scheme) for sensor fault isolation and a fuzzy controller to reconfigure of the healthy sensor. This combination is simulated using the state space model of a lateral flight control system in case of disturbance and under sensor fault scenario. Findings Using a dedicated observer scheme, the detection and time of sensor fault are correct, but the sensor fault isolation is evaluated incorrectly while the faulty sensor is isolated correctly using GOS. The simulation results show that the suggested approach works affectively for sensor faults with disturbance. Originality/value This paper proposes an integrated approach for aircraft fault-tolerant control. Under this framework, three units are designed, one is Kalman filter for filtering and the other is GOS for sensor fault isolation and another is fuzzy logic for reconfiguration. An integrated approach is sensitive to faults that have disturbances. The simulation results show the proposed integrated approach can be used for any linear system.