Supervisory fault‐tolerant control with mutual performance optimization

The problem of active fault‐tolerant control with reconfiguration mechanism for uncertain linear systems with external disturbances is addressed applying the supervisory control approach. A key feature of the proposed approach is establishment of a set of conditions providing mutual performance in the sense of taking into account the interaction of the fault detection, isolation, and accommodation subsystems in order to achieve global fault‐tolerance performance with guaranteed global stability. The efficiency of the approach is demonstrated in an example of computer simulation for a flight system benchmark. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active fault‐tolerant attitude control for flexible spacecraft with loss of actuator effectiveness

A theoretical framework for active fault‐tolerant attitude stabilization control is developed and applied to flexible spacecraft. The proposed scheme solves a difficult problem of fault‐tolerant controller design in the presence of severe partial loss of actuator effectiveness faults and external disturbances. This is accomplished by developing an observer‐based fault detection and diagnosis mechanism to reconstruct the actuator faults. Accordingly, a backstepping‐based fault‐tolerant control law is reconfigured using the reconstructed fault information. It is shown that the proposed design approach guarantees that all of the signals of the closed‐loop system are uniformly ultimately bounded. The closed‐loop performance of the proposed control strategy is evaluated extensively through numerical simulations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Robust actuator fault compensation accounting for uncertainty in the fault estimation

We propose a fault tolerant control scheme that compensates for actuator faults by adjusting the controller gain based on an estimate of the fault magnitude. The scheme consists of a plant in closed loop with an observer‐based feedback tracking controller, which is adapted to the fault situation diagnosed by a fault detection and isolation algorithm. We give conditions for correct fault detection and isolation and for robust closed‐loop stability accounting for possible errors in the fault estimation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active fault tolerant control of piecewise affine systems with reference tracking and input constraints

An active fault tolerant control (AFTC) method is proposed for discrete‐time piecewise affine (PWA) systems. Only actuator faults are considered. The AFTC framework contains a supervisory scheme, which selects a suitable controller in a set of controllers such that the stability and an acceptable performance of the faulty system are held. The design of the supervisory scheme is not considered here. The set of controllers is composed of a normal controller for the fault‐free case, an active fault detection and isolation controller for isolation and identification of the faults, and a set of passive fault tolerant controllers (PFTCs) modules designed to be robust against a set of actuator faults. In this research, the piecewise nonlinear model is approximated by a PWA system. The PFTCs are state feedback laws. Each one is robust against a fixed set of actuator faults and is able to track the reference signal while the control inputs are bounded. The PFTC problem is transformed into a feasibility problem of a set of LMIs. The method is applied on a large‐scale live‐stock ventilation model. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis and detection of incipient faults in post‐fault systems subject to adaptive fault‐tolerant control

This paper presents an effective scheme for detecting incipient faults in post‐fault systems (PFSs) subject to adaptive fault‐tolerant control (AFTC). Through a survey of existing techniques, it is shown that the adaptivity of the AFTC counteracts the effect of an incipient fault in the PFS. This makes some of the conventional fault‐detection strategies, such as Beard–Jones detection filters and adaptive observers, ineffective in this situation. It is shown that the unknown input observer (UIO) is an effective tool; hence, the UIO is designed to decouple the incipient fault from the AFTC such that the fault‐detection residual is sensitive only to the incipient fault. Extensive simulation study is presented using an aircraft example to test three fault‐detection approaches; it is demonstrated that the UIO is the most effective tool in detecting the incipient fault in a PFS subject to AFTC. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Model‐free fault‐tolerant control approach for uncertain state‐constrained linear systems with actuator faults

This paper investigates the robust adaptive fault‐tolerant control problem for state‐constrained continuous‐time linear systems with parameter uncertainties, external disturbances, and actuator faults including stuck, outage, and loss of effectiveness. It is assumed that the knowledge of the system matrices, as well as the upper bounds of the disturbances and faults, is unknown. By incorporating a barrier‐function like term into the Lyapunov function design, a novel model‐free fault‐tolerant control scheme is proposed in a parameter‐dependent form, and the state constraint requirements are guaranteed. The time‐varying parameters are adjusted online based on an adaptive method to prevent the states from violating the constraints and compensate automatically the uncertainties, disturbances, and actuator faults. The time‐invariant parameters solved by using data‐based policy iteration algorithm are introduced for helping to stabilize the system. Furthermore, it is shown that the states converge asymptotically to zero without transgression of the constraints and all signals in the resulting closed‐loop system are uniformly bounded. Finally, two simulation examples are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fault detection for discrete‐time switched singular time‐delay systems: an average dwell time approach

In this paper, the fault detection problem is investigated for a class of discrete‐time switched singular systems with time‐varying state delays. The residual generator is firstly constructed based on a switched filter, and the design of fault detection filter is formulated as an H _∞ filtering problem, that is, minimizing the error between residual and fault in the H _∞ sense. Then, by constructing an appropriate decay‐rate‐dependent piecewise Lyapunov function and using the average dwell time scheme, a sufficient condition for the residual system to be regular, causal, and exponential stable while satisfying a prescribed H _∞ performance is derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The corresponding solvability condition for the desired fault detection filters is also established via LMI approach. Finally, a numerical example is presented to show the effectiveness of the developed theoretical results.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Actuator fault‐tolerant control based on set separation

In this paper, an actuator fault‐tolerant control (FTC) strategy based on set separation is presented. The proposed scheme employs a standard configuration consisting of a bank of observers which match the different fault situations that can occur in the plant. Each of these observers has an associated estimation error with a distinctive behaviour when a estimator matches the current fault situation of the plant. With this information from each observer, a fault diagnosis and isolation (FDI) module is able to reconfigure the control loop by selecting the appropriate stabilising controller from a bank of precomputed control laws, each of them related to one of the considered fault models. The control law consists of a reference feedforward term and a feedback gain multiplying the state estimate provided by the matching observer. A novel feature of the proposed scheme resides in the decision criteria of the FDI, which is based on the computation of sets towards which the output estimation errors related to each fault scenario and for each control configuration converge. Conditions for the design of the FDI module and for fault tolerant closed‐loop stability are given, and the effectiveness of the approach is illustrated by means of a numerical example. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LMI‐based adaptive output feedback fault‐tolerant controller design for nonlinear systems

This paper presents 2‐novel linear matrix inequality (LMI)‐based adaptive output feedback fault‐tolerant control strategies for the class of nonlinear Lipschitz systems in the presence of bounded matched or mismatched disturbances and simultaneous occurrence of actuator faults, including failure, loss of effectiveness, and stuck. The constructive algorithms based on LMI with creatively using Lyapunov stability theory and without the need for an explicit information about mode of actuator faults or fault detection and isolation mechanism are developed for online tuning of adaptive and fixed output‐feedback gains to stabilize the closed‐loop control system asymptotically. The proposed controllers guarantee to compensate actuator faults effects and to attenuate disturbance effects. The resulting control methods have simpler structure, as compared with most existing recent methods and more suitable for practical systems. The merits of the proposed fault‐tolerant control scheme have been verified by the simulation on nonlinear Boeing 747 lateral motion dynamic model subjected to actuator faults.     

Integration of multiple model based fault detection and nonlinear model predictive fault‐tolerant control

In this paper, we present a new fault‐tolerant control system for a class of nonlinear systems with input constraints. Because of many important factors that stabilize a nonlinear model predictive controller, it can be used as a powerful controller in the event of fault occurrence. So, the reconfigurable controller is designed based on the quasi‐infinite model predictive control (QIMPC) approach as a fault‐tolerant approach. On the other hand, a fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) system is designed based on the multiple model method. The bank of extended Kalman filters (EKFs) is used to detect the predefined actuator fault and estimate the unknown parameters of a fault. When a fault is detected, the proposed FDD information is used to correct the model of the faulty system recursively and reconfigure the controller. Delay on FDD decision may lead to performance degradation or even instability for some systems. The timely proposed FDD approach will preserve stability. Moreover, a framework is presented to ensure stability when a fault occurs. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated, in comparison with conventional nonlinear model predictive control, by two practical examples. © 2015 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Active fault‐tolerant control for switched systems with time delay

This paper focuses on the problem of active fault‐tolerant control for switched systems with time delay. By utilizing the fault diagnosis observer, an adaptive fault estimate algorithm is proposed, which can estimate the fault signal fast and exactly. Meanwhile, a delay‐dependent criterion is obtained with the purpose of reducing the conservatism of the adaptive observer design. Based on the fault estimation information, an observer‐based fault‐tolerant controller is designed to guarantee the stability of the closed‐loop system. In terms of linear matrix inequality, sufficient conditions are derived for the existence of the adaptive observer and fault‐tolerant controller. Finally, a numerical example is included to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fault detection filter design for discrete‐time switched linear systems with mode‐dependent average dwell‐time

This paper is concerned with the problem of the fault detection (FD) filter design for discrete‐time switched linear systems with mode‐dependent average dwell‐time. The switching law is mode‐dependent and each subsystem has its own average dwell‐time. The FD filters are designed such that the augmented switched systems are asymptotically stable, and the residual signal generated by the filters achieves a weighted l₂‐gain for some disturbances and guarantees an H _? performance for the fault. By the aid of multiple Lyapunov functions combined with projection lemma, sufficient conditions for the design of the FD filters are formulated by linear matrix inequalities, furthermore, the filters gains are characterized in terms of the solution of a convex optimization problem. Finally, an application to boost convertor is given to illustrate the effectiveness and the applicability of the proposed design method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new decentralized retrofit adaptive fault‐tolerant flight control design

In this paper, we develop a new decentralized retrofit adaptive fault‐tolerant control design for a class of nonlinear models arising in flight control. The proposed adaptive fault‐tolerant controller is designed to accommodate loss‐of‐effectiveness (LoE) failures in flight control actuators and achieve accurate estimation of failure‐related parameters. The design is based on local estimation of LoE parameters and generation of local retrofit control signals to accommodate the failures. Using state‐dependent closed‐loop estimation errors, we show the overall system to be stable and demonstrate the tracking error to converge to zero asymptotically for any combination of actuator failures. Through computer simulation of F/A‐18 aircraft under actuator LoE failures, the proposed approach is also shown to achieve better parameter estimation performance compared to the fully centralized design and the design employing local observers and a centralized adaptive controller. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fault‐tolerant control for wireless networked control systems with an integrated scheduler

This paper addresses a study of fault‐tolerant control (FTC) for wireless networked control systems (WNCSs) in industrial automatic processes. The WNCSs is composed of many subsystems, which operate with different sampling cycles. In order to meet the real‐time requirements and ensure a deterministic data transmission, the time division multiple access (TDMA) mechanism is adopted in WNCSs. The data in WNCSs are transmitted following a TDMA‐based scheduler. According to the periodicity, WNCSs integrated with the scheduler is first formulated as discrete linear time periodic systems (LTPSs). Afterwards, a fault estimation method for LTPSs is developed under a H_∞ performance specification with a regional pole constraint. With the achieved state observer and fault estimator, an FTC strategy for LTPSs is explored. Finally, the proposed methods are verified on a physical experimental WiNC platform. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fault‐tolerant saturated control for switching discrete‐time systems with delays

In this paper, fault‐tolerant control problem for discrete‐time switching systems with delay and saturated input is studied. Sufficient conditions of building an observer are obtained by using multiple Lyapunov function. These conditions are worked out using cone complementarity technique, to obtain LMIs with slack variables and multiple weighted residual matrices. The obtained results are applied on a numerical example showing fault detection, localization of fault, and reconfiguration of the control to maintain asymptotic stability even in the presence of a permanent sensor fault and saturation on the control. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive fault tolerant control for a class of multi‐input multi‐output nonlinear systems with both sensor and actuator faults

Compared with the fault diagnosis, detection, and isolation literature, very few results are available to discuss control algorithms directly for multi‐input multi‐output nonlinear systems with both sensor and actuator faults in the fault tolerant control literature. In this work, we present a fault tolerant control algorithm to address the system output stabilization problem for a class of multi‐input multi‐output nonlinear systems with both parametric and nonparametric uncertainties, subject to sensor and actuator faults that can be both multiplicative and additive. All elements of the sensor measurements and actuator components can be faulty. Besides, the control input gain function is not fully known. Backstepping method is used in the analysis and control design. We show that under the proposed control scheme, uniformly ultimate boundedness of the system output is guaranteed, while all closed‐loop system signals stay bounded. In the cases where the sensor faults are only multiplicative, exponential convergence of the system state variables into small neighbourhoods around zero is guaranteed. An illustrative example on a robot manipulator model is presented in the end to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.     

Robust multiple‐fault detection and isolation: A gradient flow approach

This paper presents a novel solution to the fault detection and isolation observer design problem for linear time‐invariant systems. A gradient flow approach is proposed for synthesizing a residual generator under optimal eigenstructure assignment. This is achieved by minimizing the spectral condition number of the observer eigenvector matrix. The properties of convergence of the gradient flow solution are proved and its efficiency demonstrated via a numerical example. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Restricted diagonal detection filter and updating strategy for multiple fault detection and isolation

In this paper, a restricted diagonal detection filter for multiple fault detection and isolation in linear discrete‐time stochastic systems is presented. The proposed filter makes it possible to generate a minimum variance white innovation sequence having directional properties in response to each fault. For detection and isolation of multiple impulsive faults, a bank of generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) tests is applied to the innovation sequence generated by the detection filter. It is shown that this strategy extends the GLR test of Willsky and Jones (IEEE Trans. Automat. Control 1976; 21 (1):108112) to the case of multiple impulsive faults appearing simultaneously. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active fault‐tolerant control system design with trajectory re‐planning against actuator faults and saturation: Application to a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle

During the past 30 years, various fault‐tolerant control (FTC) methods have been developed to address actuator or component faults for various systems with or without tracking control objectives. However, very few FTC strategies establish a relation between the post‐fault reference trajectory to track and the remaining resources in the system after fault occurrence. This is an open problem that is not well considered in the literature. The main contribution of this paper is in the design of a reconfigurable FTC and trajectory planning scheme with emphasis on online decision making using differential flatness. In the fault‐free case and on the basis of the available actuator resources, the reference trajectories are synthesized so as to drive the system as fast as possible to its desired setpoint without violating system constraints. In the fault case, the proposed active FTC system (AFTCS) consists in synthesizing a reconfigurable feedback control along with a modified reference trajectories once an actuator fault has been diagnosed by a fault detection and diagnosis scheme, which uses a parameter‐estimation‐based unscented Kalman filter. Benefited with the integration of trajectory re‐planning using the flatness concept and the compensation‐based reconfigurable controller, both faults and saturation in actuators can be handled effectively with the proposed AFTCS design. Advantages and limitations of the proposed AFTCS are illustrated using an experimental quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle testbed.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.