Detection and Isolation of Propeller Icing and Electric Propulsion System Faults in Fixed-Wing UAVs

Abstract

This thesis presents a fault detection and isolation (FDI) framework for detecting propeller icing, and other propulsion faults of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Such faults are among the main causes for incidents and loss of equipment.A theoretical framework for the proposed FDI is covered extensively. A tuning methodology and an implementation guide are also covered in detail. The method has been tested extensively using a software-in-the-loop simulator. The simulation results have proven to be very successful and this motivates future testing on real data sets. Relation to previous work This is a disclaimer about what is new in this thesis and what has been borrowed or reused. Project workThere will be some content-overlap between this thesis and the project work from the fall of 2020. The project work will be quoted in the relevant parts.Many of the core FDI ideas were developed during the project work. The main contribution of the project work was an in-depth analysis of those ideas. The analysis was aimed at limitations and possibilities. The project left off with a non-functioning method, with many open ends. This thesis presents a refined solution.Software documentation is also covered in this thesis. The software project was started during the project work. This was not documented in the project work. By then most of the code has been refactored many times over. Further, the main data structures were developed after the project work. The project work is therefore not quoted in the software section (7). Previous work by othersThis project builds on previous projects at NTNU. Most prominent is the use of the Ardupilot-Simulink simulator. Much of the simulator was developed by A. W. Wenz, K. Gryte, A. Winter and T. A. Johansen. The simulator is described in Section 5. My contribution to the simulator was the fault dynamics and the aircraft speed control. Some of the core ideas were originally from A. W. Wenz. Wenz never published these ideas, but the ideas are present in the project work. Thus, Wenz is credited through the project work citations.

Fault-Tolerant Control of a Dual-Stator PMSM for the Full-Electric Propulsion of a Lightweight Fixed-Wing UAV

“…A comprehensive survey on methods for fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control against UAV failures is provided by [30], and the reference highlights that the works addressing propulsion failures for fixed-wing UAVs is very limited. Most of the literature is actually focused on the effects of faults to control actuators and sensors for both single UAVs [31][32][33][34] and UAVs in formation flight [35][36][37], while the faults to propulsion systems are typically modelled with rough or very simplified approaches (e.g., total propulsion loss as in [38] or increase in the drivetrain friction as in [39]).…”