Performance-Guaranteed Fault-Tolerant Control for Uncertain Nonlinear Systems via Learning-Based Switching Scheme

This article is concerned with the challenge of guaranteeing output constraints for fault-tolerant control (FTC) of a class of unknown multi-input single-output (MISO) nonlinear systems in the presence of actuator faults. Most industrial systems are equipped with redundant actuators and a fault detection-isolation mechanism for accommodating unexpected actuator faults. To simplify the system design and reduce the risk of false alarm or missed detection brought by the detection unit, a learning-based switching function scheme is proposed to automatically activate different sets of actuators in a rotational manner without human intervention. By this means, no explicit fault detection mechanism is needed. An additional step has been made to guarantee that the system output remains in user-defined time-varying asymmetric output constraints all the time during the occurrence of failures by utilizing error transformation techniques. The stability of the transformed system can equivalently deliver the result that the original system output stays in the required bounds. Hence, system crash or further catastrophic outcomes can be avoided. A neural network is integrated to embody the adaptive FTC design for dealing with unknown system dynamics. The dynamic surface control (DSC) technique is also invoked to decrease complexity. Furthermore, the stability analysis is carried out by the standard Lyapunov approach to guarantee that all the signals of the closed-loop system are semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded. Finally, the simulation results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.