Passive Fault-Tolerant Control of a Fixed-Wing UAV Based on Model-Free Control

Fixed-wing UAVs show a high interest and high challenges in control, fault diagnostic, and fault-tolerant control. Accurate models of highly coupled nonlinear systems as the Fixed-Wing UAV are complex and time consuming. A need to find a control architecture independent of the model, suitable for nonlinear systems and can reject disturbances is highly desirable. One example on such a control approach is the concept of Model Free Controllers (MFC). This paper compares MFC architecture to the standard PI controller applied to a Fixed-Wing UAV in fault free case, trajectory tracking in the presence of wind disturbance, and fault tolerance in case of loss of effectiveness of actuators. The work consists of implementing the controllers in MATLAB/Simulink on a fixed-wing UAV model.