Thrust and Tilt Constrained Fault-Tolerant Control of Quadcopters With Propeller Failure

This paper addresses the problem of quadcopter control in the case of a sudden propeller failure. A dynamic inversion-based control architecture is used to develop a controller that maintains the quadcopter's stability along with the trajectory tracking in such a scenario. The method presented in the paper involves a two-loop control structure. The inner loop prioritizes the quadcopter's roll and pitch axes stability, while compromising the yaw axes stability to a uniform spin about the yaw axis. The outer loop enables trajectory tracking by the quadcopter. Simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller to maintain stability and trajectory tracking with a failed propeller, provided the thrust demands on the functioning propellers do not exceed their saturation limits. A scenario requiring the quadcopter with a failed propeller (and with the fault-tolerant controller), to intercept a moving target using a Proportional Navigation guidance law is subsequently studied, and simulation results presented.