Aircraft Fuel Transfer System

This is a simplified model of a fuel transfer system in an aircraft. There are 6 fuel tanks. Each tank is connected to a shared conduit via valves (V*). Once the valves are open, fuel can flow between tanks under gravity. The tanks are also connected to engines via pumps. Pumps drain fuel from the tanks under a prescribed schedule. The tanks are drained innermost first.

Faults in the systems can be changes in engine fuel demands, pump capacities, valve resistances etc. Faults can be gradual or abrupt.

We frame this as a reinforcement learning problem. This requires formulation of a reward function, data-driven models, and appropriate choice of algorithm that can adapt fast to faults.

The code for this system can be found here.

Some research involving this system:

I. Ahmed, H. Khorasgani, and G. Biswas, “Comparison of Model Predictive and Reinforcement Learning Methods for Fault Tolerant Control,” IFAC-PapersOnLine, vol. 51, no. 24, pp. 233–240, 2018.

I. Ahmed, M. Quiñones-Grueiro, and G. Biswas, “Fault-Tolerant Control of Degrading Systems with On-Policy Reinforcement Learning,”  IFAC-PapersOnLine, 2020.

I. Ahmed, M. Quiñones-Grueiro, and G. Biswas, “Complementary Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Fault-Adaptive Control,”  PHM Society Conference, 2020.