Event-triggered fixed-time fault-tolerant attitude control for the flying-wing UAV using a Nussbaum-type function

This paper introduces an innovative adaptive event-triggered fault-tolerant attitude control framework designed for a flying-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operating under constraints such as limited embedded resources, unknown actuator failures, system uncertainties, and external disturbances. The proposed scheme incorporates several noteworthy features: (i) Implementation of a relative threshold event-triggered mechanism to efficiently alleviate communication pressures and computational burdens inherent in the attitude control system. (ii) Utilization of a radial basis function neural network to approximate lumped disturbances, reducing dependence on prior knowledge. (iii) Adaptive compensation for sampling errors and actuator faults by employing the Nussbaum gain. (iv) Integration of a smooth function to address singularity issues and prevent Zeno behavior. Furthermore, Lyapunov analysis validates that all signals within the closed-loop system remain bounded and converge within a predetermined time frame. Comparative numerical simulations underscore the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control approach. •A novel actuator model mitigates malfunctions and inaccuracies, optimizing controller architecture without discrete handling.•Advanced control allocation and decoupling establish a mapping to adaptively counteract actuator issues and sampling errors with Nussbaum gains.•Fixed-time FT control, independent of initial states, bypasses singularities with a smooth function, avoiding Zeno behavior in backstepping design.