Fault tolerant Flight Control of a VTOL Tailsitter UAV
Compared to other vertical take off and landing (VTOL) systems, a tailsitter minimizes the number of actuators and moving parts necessary. The downside of having a minimalistic actuation is its inherent low fault tolerance. The failure of an actuator usually results in a loss of controllability, resulting in a crash. In this paper we analyze possible actuator failures and the constraints they pose on the capabilities of the system. We further present light weight adaptations to the nominal flight controller to make it fault tolerant. The fault tolerant controller is implemented on a small tailsitter VTOL aircraft and adjusted to the system by means of extensive experimental studies. Finally, the capabilities and performance under failures are demonstrated and analyzed.
2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)