LAUSR

This letter proposes an approach for estimating the loss of effectiveness of UAV actuators while also considering the presence of aerodynamic effects, most specifically those regarding blade-flapping. The fault detection scheme is based on a Reduced Order Extended Kalman Filter Tolerant to Aerodynamic Effects (ROEKF-TAE) capable of detecting loss-of-effectiveness (LOE) faults in more than one actuator at the same time. The experimental results were performed using a Parrot Mambo micro drone and compared to those of a traditional EKF, as well as to those of a state-of-the-art adaptive Kalman Filter available in the literature. The filter proposed in this work could better distinguish between the effects of the actual fault and those of the blade-flapping disturbance when compared to the other filters. Also, it was able to identify with more precision which actuators were truly defective and which were not.