Quadrotor Accelerometer and Gyroscope Sensor Fault Diagnosis Using Nonlinear Adaptive Estimation Methods

This paper presents the design, analysis, and real-time experimental evaluation results of a nonlinear sensor fault diagnosis scheme for quadrotor unmanned air vehicles (UAV). The objective is to detect, isolate, and estimate sensor bias faults in accelerometer and gyroscope measurements. Based on the quadrotor dynamics and sensor models under consideration, the effects of sensor faults are represented as virtual actuator faults in the quadrotor state equation. Two nonlinear diagnostic estimators are designed to provide structured residuals for fault detection and isolation. Additionally, after the fault is detected and isolated, a nonlinear adaptive estimation scheme is employed for estimating the unknown fault magnitude. The proposed fault diagnosis scheme is capable of handling simultaneous faults in the accelerometer and gyroscope measurements. The effectiveness of the fault diagnosis method is demonstrated using an indoor real-time quadrotor UAV test environment.