Uniting Safe-Parking and Reconfiguration-Based Approaches for Fault-Tolerant Control of Switched Nonlinear Systems

This work considers the problem of control of switched nonlinear systems that transit between their constituent modes subject to input constraints and actuator faults. A framework is developed to handle faults that preclude the possibility of continued nominal operation in the active mode. Two types of switching schedules are considered. For a fixed schedule, we design a fault-handling algorithm to safe-park the system using the depleted control action. For a flexible schedule, the consideration is to switch the system to a mode (if exists and available) where nominal operation is preserved under either the active or any backup control configuration in the presence of the fault. The key ideas of the proposed framework are illustrated via a switched chemical reactor example.