L1 neural network adaptive fault-tolerant controller for unmanned aerial vehicle attitude control system

In this article, a L1 neural network adaptive fault-tolerant controller is exploited for an unmanned aerial vehicle attitude control system in presence of nonlinear uncertainties, such as system uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults. A nonlinear dynamic inversion controller with sliding mode control law is designed as the outer-loop controller to track the attitude angles quickly and accurately which reduces dependence on model accuracy. A L1 neural network adaptive controller of the inner loop is introduced to compensate the nonlinear uncertainties and have a good attitude tracking. The radial basis function neural network technique is introduced to approximate a lumped nonlinear uncertainty and guarantee the stability and transient performance of the closed-loop system, instead of converting it to a half-time linear system by the parametric linearization method. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.