Cooperative Virtual Sensor for Fault Detection and Identification in Multi-UAV Applications

Table 1

Identification of possible faults in lightweight UAVs.

Type of fault	Faulty component	Possible causes
Hardware fault	Brushless motors and electronic speed controller (ESC)	Overheating, vibrations, disconnections, impacts
	Attitude sensors (IMU: gyroscope + accelerometer + magnetometer)	Noise due to vibrations, drifts, presence of magnetic fields
	Altitude sensors (ultrasonic devices)	Echoes due to obstacles
	GPS	Signal loss, signal hops, low accuracy, drifts
	Batteries	Short circuits, unexpected discharges
Software fault	Operative system	System halt, memory problems, insufficient CPU, software bugs
	Controller	Instability, wind-up, saturation