Model‐Based Active Fault‐Tolerant Control Method for Variable Cycle Engine

ABSTRACT Aircraft engines will inevitably experience performance degradation and faults of gas‐path components. This article focuses on the variable cycle engine (VCE) and aims to design an active fault‐tolerant control scheme based on adjusting control command values to restore engine performance and avoid dangerous situations under degradation or fault. Adaptive active fault‐tolerant control architecture is designed to transform the active fault‐tolerant control scheme into a multi‐objective optimization problem; a fault‐tolerant control look‐up table‐based scheme is proposed to calculate the calculation of the fault‐tolerant control correction value offline by using a global optimization algorithm, and the calculation of the control correction value is carried out by an online look‐up table interpolation method. The active fault‐tolerant control method under engine degradation and fault is validated for several design and test points within the flight envelope. Simulation results show that the scheme can restore the engine's surge margin and thrust level without exceeding the engine's parameters, and improve the engine's tolerance to degradation or fault, which proves the effectiveness of the method.