Reconfigurable fault-tolerant control for supersonic missiles with actuator failures under actuation redundancy

Aircraft undergoing actuator failures into under-actuation have been seldom studied in literature. Aiming at addressing actuator failures of Total Loss of Effectiveness (TLOE) as well as Partial Loss of Effectiveness (PLOE) resulting in different system actuations, reconfigurable Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC) is proposed for supersonic wingless missiles under actuation redundancy. The under-actuated system of TLOE failure patterns is solved by transformation to cascade systems through a ‘shape variable’. Meanwhile, actuator TLOE faults of different unknown failure patterns from proper actuation to under-actuation are accommodated by a reconfigurable adaptive law on a multiple-model basis. The backstepping technique with the Extended State Observer (ESO) method adopted as a basic strategy is applied to an established symmetric coupled missile system with actuator PLOE faults, modeling errors, and external disturbances. Additionally, the nonlinear saturation characteristics of actuators are settled by an auxiliary system with the Nussbaum function technique. The stability of the control system is analyzed and proven through Lyapunov theory. Numerical simulations are implemented in the presences of aerodynamic uncertainties, gust disturbance, and actuator failures. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method with satisfactory tracking performance and actuator fault tolerance capacity.