Fixed-time fault-tolerant formation-containment control for unmanned helicopters via a fully actuated system approach

Abstract

This paper investigates the fixed-time fault-tolerant formation-containment control problem for unmanned helicopters (UHs) with collision and obstacle avoidance. Firstly, a high-order fully actuated system model of the UH with actuator faults is developed, which includes position and attitude subsystems. Secondly, based on the null space method, the tasks performed by multiple UHs are decomposed into collision avoidance tasks, obstacle avoidance tasks and cooperative flight tasks, and the desired trajectory is obtained by task fusion according to the priority. Then, a fixed-time disturbance observer is constructed to estimate the fault information of each UH, which is convenient for the controller to compensate for the effect of faults. With the aid of the fully actuated system approach, the fault-tolerant formation-containment controller is designed, guaranteeing that tracking errors converge to the prescribed performance range within a fixed time. Finally, the simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.