Fault-Tolerant Control for Fixed-Wing Aircraft with Asymmetric Damage: Model, Method, and Experiment

This study examined the dynamics and control of a fixed-wing aircraft with asymmetric wing damage. A high-fidelity model of a damaged aircraft was developed, and aerodynamic data for this model were acquired using wind-tunnel tests. Based on these data, the dynamic effects of wing damage on the aircraft were analyzed, providing theoretical guidance for the design of the controller. A fault-tolerant reconfiguration control scheme is proposed that includes fast online trimming, a virtual attitude controller, and adaptive control allocation. The trim law enables the aircraft to recover balance quickly after damage, while the adaptive control allocation algorithm reconfigures the remaining control surfaces of the aircraft so that it can track commands. In addition to a numerical simulation, importantly, a flight experiment involving autonomous takeoff and landing processes was used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm across the full flight envelope.