On the fault tolerant control of a quadrotor manipulation system via MPC and DOb approaches

Recently, the Aerial Manipulation System becomes very attractive for a wide range of applications due to its unique features. However, control of such system is quite challenging. One of the critical challenge is that this system is very susceptible to actuators' faults. In this paper, a Passive Fault Tolerant Control System is proposed to address this issue with robust and optimal performance. The robustness is achieved using a linear Disturbance Observer (DOb) loop. Based on the linearization capability of DOb, a standard Model Predictive Control (MPC) is then used and the resulting control scheme is characterized by both a low computational load and optimal actuators' efforts with respect to conventional nonlinear robust solutions. This controller is tested to achieve the tracking of a point-to-point task space references under the effect of actuators' faults, picking/releasing a payload, changing the operating region, and measurement noise. Efficacy of the proposed technique is verified via numerical simulations.