Analysis of a Uniform Passive Fault-Tolerant Control Method for Multicopters

For the multicopter with more than four rotors, the rotor fault information is unobservable, which limits the application of active fault-tolerant on multicopters. This paper applies an existing fault-tolerant control method for quadcopter to multi-copter with more than four rotors. Without relying on rotor fault information, this method is able to stabilize the multicopter with multiple rotor failures, which is validated on the hexacopter and octocopter using the hardware-in-the-loop simulations. Additionally, the hardware-in-the-loop simulations demonstrate that a more significant tilt angle in flight will inhibit the maximum tolerable number of rotor failures of a multicopter. The more significant aerodynamic drag moment will make it difficult for the multicopter to regain altitude control after rotor failure.