Distributed Finite-Time Fault-Tolerant Cooperative Control of Multiple UAVs Against Thrust Loss Fault and External Disturbances

Thrust loss faults and external disturbances may be encountered by multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (multi-UAVs) and threaten flight safety. Based on finite-time sliding-mode control (SMC), a fault-tolerant cooperative control (FTCC) is designed for multi-UAVs against thrust loss fault and external disturbances in this paper. Firstly, the dynamic model and the thrust loss fault model are introduced. Secondly, the distributed sliding-mode observer (DSMO) is employed to observe the position of virtual leader. A finite-time extended state observer (FTESO) is adopted to estimate the total unknowns. Then, follower UAVs can follow up with the virtual leader with finite-time convergent synchronous tracking errors. Finally, the performance of proposed controller is illustrated in simulations.