A feedback-based fault detection scheme for aircraft systems with damage

This paper addresses the design, analysis and evaluation of an adaptive feedback-based stable damage detection scheme applied to an aircraft system with structure damage and parameter uncertainties. An aircraft system damage model is presented which captures the key feature of the longitudinal and lateral-directional dynamic coupling caused by the aircraft structure damage. Two detectors are used to estimate decoupled nominal system parameters and coupled damaged system parameters. Unlike most fault detection schemes which operate under the assumption that all system signals remain bounded under damage conditions, the adaptive damage detection scheme proposed in this paper is equipped with an adaptive feedback controller which is designed to ensure the desired signal bound-edness condition needed for stable damage detection operation. By comparing estimation error residuals between the state signals of detectors and that of the aircraft system, system damage is detected. Desired adaptive damage detection performance is demonstrated by extensive simulation results from an application to a high-fidelity aircraft model - the nonlinear NASA Generic Transport Model (GTM) under wing damage conditions.