Research has presented several approaches to achieve varying degrees of fault-tolerance in unmanned aircraft. Approaches in reconfigurable flight control are generally divided into two categories: those which incorporate multiple non-adaptive controllers and switch between them based on the output of a fault detection and identification element and those that employ a single adaptive controller capable of compensating for a variety of fault modes. Regardless of the approach for reconfigurable flight control, certain fault modes dictate system restructuring in order to prevent a catastrophic failure. System restructuring enables active control of actuation not employed by the nominal system to recover controllability of the aircraft. After system restructuring, continued operation requires the generation of flight paths that adhere to an altered flight envelope. The control architecture developed in this research employs a multi-tiered hierarchy to allow unmanned aircraft to generate and track safe flight paths despite the occurrence of potentially catastrophic faults. The hierarchical architecture increases the level of autonomy of the system by integrating five functionalities with the baseline system: fault detection and identification, active system restructuring, reconfigurable flight control, reconfigurable path planning, and mission adaptation. Fault detection and identification algorithms continually monitor aircraft performance and issue fault declarations. When the severity of a fault exceeds the capability of the baseline flight controller, active system restructuring expands the controllability of the aircraft using unconventional control strategies not exploited by the baseline controller. Each of the reconfigurable flight controllers and the baseline controller employ a proven adaptive neural network control strategy. A reconfigurable path planner employs an adaptive model of the vehicle to re-shape the desired flight path. Generation of the revised flight path is posed as a linear program constrained by the response of the degraded system. Finally, a mission adaptation component estimates limitations on the closed-loop performance of the aircraft and adjusts the aircraft mission accordingly. A combination of simulation and flight test results using two unmanned helicopters validates the utility of the hierarchical architecture.

Fault tolerant control can accommodate the component faults in a control system such as sensors, actuators, plants, etc. This dissertation presents two fault tolerant control schemes to accommodate the failures of power amplifiers and sensors in a magnetic suspension system. The homopolar magnetic bearings are biased by permanent magnets to reduce the energy consumption. One control scheme is to adjust system parameters by swapping current distribution matrices for magnetic bearings and weighting gain matrices for sensor arrays, but maintain the MIMO-based control law invariant before and after the faults. Current distribution matrices are evaluated based on the set of poles (power amplifier plus coil) that have failed and the requirements for uncoupled force/voltage control, linearity, and specified force/voltage gains to be unaffected by the failure. Weighting gain matrices are evaluated based on the set of sensors that have failed and the requirements for uncoupling x1 and x2 sensing, runout reduction, and voltage/displacement gains to be unaffected by the failure. The other control scheme is to adjust the feedback gains on-line or off-line, but the current distribution matrices are invariant before and after the faults. Simulation results have demonstrated the fault tolerant operation by these two control schemes.

In this thesis, several design methodologies are presented to improve the reliability of dual traction inverters in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). Several power inverter topologies including the two-level voltage-source inverter, the boost voltage-source inverter, the Z-source inverter, and reduced-parts inverters are compared in terms of power ratings, volume, and efficiency. The comparison results show that the two-level voltage-source inverter presents higher efficiency, higher power density, and lower cost. Therefore, the back-to-back two-level voltage-source inverter is selected. DC-link capacitor and power modules are the most vulnerable components in dual traction inverters. The lifetime of capacitor is mainly determined by the core temperature. In this thesis, an interleaving control scheme is proposed to reduce the capacitor power loss by decreasing the total DC-link current harmonics. With reduced capacitor power loss, the core temperature of capacitor is reduced. Therefore, the lifetime of capacitor is improved. In addition, a fast electro-thermal model of traction inverters is proposed to estimate the junction temperatures of power devices. Practical switching losses are measured and thermal coupling effects between multiple devices are considered. The calculation rate of junction temperature is reduced by considering both power loss profiles and properties of the thermal impedance. With this model, over-temperature protection and lifetime evaluation can be implemented to enhance the reliability of traction inverters. Finally, a current sensor fault-tolerant operation scheme with six-phase current reconstruction technique is proposed to improve the reliability of dual inverters. In order to get the missing phase currents, the PWM signals are phase shifted to create the reconstruction conditions. With measured DC-link current, all phase-currents of dual inverters are obtained at the expense of slight degradation of maximum allowable modulation index. Therefore, when some or all of the phase current sensors are failed, the dual traction inverters can operate normally. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

As intelligent hydraulic systems with embedded sensors become more ubiquitous, the real or perceived reliability challenge associated with sensors must be addressed to encourage their adoption. In this paper, a fault-tolerant control strategy for an intelligent independent metering valve that allows continued operation if a sensor fails is described. The twin-spool valve example utilizes position sensors to stabilize the spool positions and eliminate hysteresis, and pressure sensors to provide digital pressure compensation, electronic load sensing, and other features. An independent metering valve has redundancy provided by four sensors working together to control the flow into and out of a single actuator. Although two sensors are needed to control the flow through a spool, the controller can be reconfigured to ensure the flow is always controlled on the spool with both sensors working. To accomplish this, the concept of cross-port pressure control is introduced that uses the faulty side of the valve to maintain constant pressure on the non-faulty side. By maintaining a constant pressure, the flow in and out of the actuator are balanced. Experimental results on the boom of a backhoe demonstrate the operation of the fault tolerant control strategy.

Faults and failures in system components are the two main reasons for the instability and the degradation in control performance. In recent decades, fault-tolerant control (FTC) approaches were introduced to improve the resiliency of the control system against faults and failures. In general, FTC techniques are classified into two major groups: passive and active. Passive FTC systems do not rely on the fault information to control the system and are closely related to the robust control techniques while an active FTC system performs based on the information received from the fault detection and isolation (FDI) system, and the fault problem will be tackled more intelligently without affecting other parts of the system. This dissertation technically reviews fault and failure causes in control systems and finds solutions to compensate for their effects. Recent achievements in FDI approaches, and active and passive FTC designs are investigated. Thorough comparisons of several different aspects are conducted to understand the advantages and disadvantages of different FTC techniques to motivate researchers to further developing FTC, and FDI approaches. Then, a novel active FTC system framework based on online FDI is presented which has significant advantages in comparison with other state of the art FTC strategies. To design the proposed active FTC, a new FDI approach is introduced which uses the artificial neural network (ANN) and a model based observer to detect and isolate faults and failures in sensors and actuators. In addition, the extended Kalman filter (EKF) is introduced to tune ANN weights and improve the ANN performance. Then, the FDI signal combined with a nonlinear dynamic inversion (NDI) technique is used to compensate for the faults in the actuators and sensors of a nonlinear system. The proposed scheme detects and accommodates faults in the actuators and sensors of the system in real-time without the need of controller reconfiguration. The proposed active FTC approach is used to design a control system for three different applications: Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), load frequency control system, and proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system. The performance of the designed controllers are investigated through numerical simulations by comparison with conventional control approaches, and their advantages are demonstrated.

L’objectif de ce manuscrit est de fournir une technique de commande tolérante aux défauts basée sur la platitude différentielle. Pour ce type de systèmes, il est possible de trouver un ensemble de variables, nommées sorties plates, tel que, les états et les entrées de commande du système puissent s’exprimer en fonction de ces sorties et d’un nombre fini de ses dérivées temporelles. Le bloc de détection et d’isolation doit assurer la détection du défaut le plus rapidement possible. Cette action est effectuée en exploitant la propriété de non-unicité des sorties plates. En effet, si un deuxième jeu de sorties plates peux être trouvé et si ce deuxième jeu n’est couplé avec le premier que par une équation différentielle, le nombre des résidus permettant la détection de défauts pourra être augmenté. La condition pour cela est que les deux jeux soient différentiellement couplés ce qui signifie qu’il existe une équation qui contienne des dérivées temporelles et qui couple un élément du premier jeu avec un élément du deuxième jeu de sorties plates. En conséquence le nombre de résidus disponibles pour la détection est supérieur au nombre que l’on aurait si on avait seulement un jeu des sorties plates.En ce qui concerne la reconfiguration, si le système plat satisfait les propriétés énumérées ci-dessus, nous obtiendrons autant de valeurs des états et des entrées que le nombre de jeux de sorties plates trouvés. En effet chaque entrée de commande et chaque état du système peuvent être recalculés en fonction des sorties plates. L’approche proposée fournit de cette manière un résidu prenant en compte une mesure calculée avec le vecteur plat contenant le défaut et une autre avec le vecteur plat libre de défaut. Les signaux redondants libres de défauts seront ainsi utilisés comme références du contrôleur de manière à ce que les effets du défaut soient masqués et ne rentrent pas la boucle de commande. Ceci sera utile pour fournir une stratégie de commande entièrement basée sur les systèmes plats.Les travaux présentés dans ce mémoire sont donnés sous l’hypothèse suivante: Les sorties plates sont fonctions de l’état du système, néanmoins dans ce manuscrit elles seront limitées à être directement une partie de l’état du système ou une combinaison linéaire d’entre eux. La boucle de commande est fermée avec un correcteur par retour d’état.Enfin pour les travaux réalisés en fin de manuscrit les sorties plates doivent pouvoir être mesurées ou reconstruites.Les défauts affectant les actionneurs sont considérés rejetés par le contrôleur, par conséquent la reconfiguration est seulement effectuée après la détection d’un défaut capteur.La faisabilité de l’approche proposée est analysée sur deux systèmes non linéaires, un drone quadrirotor et un système de trois cuves. / The objective of this Ph.D. work is to provide a flatness based active fault-tolerant control technique. For such systems, it is possible to find a set of variables, named flat outputs, such that states and control inputs can be expressed as functions of flat outputs and their time derivatives. The fault detection and isolation block has to provide a fast and accurate fault isolation. This action is carried out by exploiting the non-uniqueness property of the flat outputs. In fact, if a second set of flat outputs which are coupled by a differential equation of the first is calculated, bthe number of residues augments. Differentially coupled means that it exists an equation with time derivatives inside, that couple one element of the first set with one of the second. As a consequence of augmenting the number of residual signal more faults than in the one set case may be isolated.Regarding reconfiguration, if the flat system complies with the properties listed above, we will obtain versions of states and control inputs as much of flat output vectors, are found, because each control input and state is a function of the flat output. The proposed approach provides in this manner one measure related to a faulty flat output vector and one or more computed by using an unfaulty one. The redundant state signals could be used as reference of the controller in order to hide the fault effects. This will be helpful to provide an entirely flatness based fault-tolerant control strategy.The works presented in this manuscript are under the following hypothesis: The flat outputs are functions of the state of the system, however in this work the flat outputs are constrained to be states of the system or a linear combination of them.The control loop is closed with a state feedback controller.For purposes of this work flat outputs need to be measured.Faults affecting the actuators are considered rejected by the controller; by consequence reconfiguration is only carried out after a sensor fault occurs.Feasibility of the proposed approach is analyzed in two nonlinear plants, an unmanned quadrotor and a three tank system.

Les travaux de recherche traités dans cette thèse s’appuient sur l’expertise des actionsmenées entre l’Agence spatiale européenne (ESA), l’industrie Thales Alenia Space (TAS) et le laboratoirede l’Intégration du Matériau au Système (IMS) qui développent de nouvelles générations d’unités intégréesde guidage, navigation et pilotage (GNC) avec une fonction de détection des défauts et de tolérance desdéfauts. La mission de référence retenue dans cette thèse est la mission de retour d’échantillons martiens(Mars Sample Return, MSR) de l’ESA. Ce travail se concentre sur la séquence terminale du rendez-vous dela mission MSR qui correspond aux dernières centaines de mètres jusqu’à la capture. Le véhicule chasseurest l’orbiteur MSR (chasseur), alors que la cible passive est un conteneur sphérique. L’objectif au niveaude contrôle est de réaliser la capture avec une précision inférieure à quelques centimètres. Les travaux derecherche traités dans cette thèse s’intéressent au développement des approches sur base de modèle de détectionet d’isolation des défauts (FDI) et de commande tolérante aux défaillances (FTC), qui pourraientaugmenter d’une manière significative l’autonomie opérationnelle et fonctionnelle du chasseur pendant lerendez-vous et, d’une manière plus générale, d’un vaisseau spatial impliqué dans des missions située dansl’espace lointain. Dès lors que la redondance existe dans les capteurs et que les roues de réaction ne sontpas utilisées durant la phase de rendez-vous, le travail présenté dans cette thèse est orienté seulementvers les systèmes de propulsion par tuyères. Les défaillances examinées ont été définies conformément auxexigences de l’ESA et de TAS et suivant leurs expériences. Les approches FDI/FTC présentées s’appuientsur la redondance de capteurs, la redirection de contrôle et sur les méthodes de réallocation de contrôle,ainsi que le FDI hiérarchique, y compris les approches à base de signaux au niveau de capteurs, les approchesà base de modèle de détection/localisation de défauts de propulseur et la surveillance de sécuritéde trajectoire. Utilisant un simulateur industriel de haute-fidélité, les indices de performance et de fiabilitéFDI, qui ont été soigneusement choisis accompagnés des campagnes de simulation de robustesse/sensibilitéMonte Carlo, démontrent la viabilité des approches proposées. / The work addressed in this thesis draws expertise from actions undertaken between the EuropeanSpace Agency (ESA), the industry Thales Alenia Space (TAS) and the IMS laboratory (laboratoirede l’Intégration du Matériau au Système) which develop new generations of integrated Guidance, Navigationand Control (GNC) units with fault detection and tolerance capabilities. The reference mission isthe ESA’s Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. The presented work focuses on the terminal rendezvoussequence of the MSR mission which corresponds to the last few hundred meters until the capture. Thechaser vehicle is the MSR Orbiter, while the passive target is a diameter spherical container. The objectiveat control level is a capture achievement with an accuracy better than a few centimeter. The research workaddressed in this thesis is concerned by the development of model-based Fault Detection and Isolation(FDI) and Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) approaches that could significantly increase the operational andfunctional autonomy of the chaser during rendezvous, and more generally, of spacecraft involved in deepspace missions. Since redundancy exist in the sensors and since the reaction wheels are not used duringthe rendezvous phase, the work presented in this thesis focuses only on the thruster-based propulsionsystem. The investigated faults have been defined in accordance with ESA and TAS requirements andfollowing their experiences. The presented FDI/FTC approaches relies on hardware redundancy in sensors,control redirection and control re-allocation methods and a hierarchical FDI including signal-basedapproaches at sensor level, model-based approaches for thruster fault detection/isolation and trajectorysafety monitoring. Carefully selected performance and reliability indices together with Monte Carlo simulationcampaigns, using a high-fidelity industrial simulator, demonstrate the viability of the proposedapproaches.

Fault-tolerant vehicle design is an emerging inter-disciplinary research domain, which is of increasedimportance due to the electrification of automotive systems. The goal of fault-tolerant systems is to handleoccuring faults under operational condition and enable the driver to get to a safe stop. This paperpresents results from an extended survey on fault-tolerant vehicle design. It aims to provide a holisticview on the fault-tolerant aspects of a vehicular system. An overview of fault-tolerant systems in generaland their design premises is given as well as the specific aspects related to automotive applications. Thepaper highlights recent and prospective development of vehicle motion control with integrated chassiscontrol and passive and active fault-tolerant control. Also, fault detection and diagnosis methods arebriefly described. The shift on control level of vehicles will be accompanied by basic structural changeswithin the network architecture. Control architecture as well as communication protocols and topologiesare adapted to comply with the electrified automotive systems. Finally, the role of regulations andinternational standardization to enable fault-tolerant vehicle design is taken into consideration. / <p>Qc 20120730</p>

Ensuring the reliable operation of engineering systems has long been a subject of great practical and academic interest. This interest is clearly demonstrated by the preponderance of literature in the area of Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD) and Fault Tolerant Control (FTC), spanning the past three decades. However, increasingly stringent performance and safety requirements have led to engineering systems with progressively increasing complexity. This complexity has rendered many traditional FDD and FTC methods exceedingly cumbersome, often to the point of infeasibility. This thesis aims to enable FDD and FTC for complex engineering systems of interacting dynamic subsystems. For such systems, generic FDD/FTC methods have remained elusive. Effects caused by nonlinearities, interactions between subsystems and varying usage patterns complicate FDD and FTC. The goal of this thesis is to develop methods for FDD and FTC that will allow decoupling of anomalies occurred inside the monitored system from those occurred in the systems affecting the monitored system, as well as enabling performance recovery of the monitored system. In pursuit of these goals, FDD and FTC methods are explored that can account for operating regime-dependent effects in monitoring, diagnosis, prognosis and performance recovery for two classes of machines: those that operate in modes that can change only at distinct times (which often occur in manufacturing opera- tions such as drilling, milling, turning) and for those that operate in regimes that are continuously varying (such as automotive systems or electric motors). For machines that operate in modes that can change only at distinct times, a degradation model is postulated which describes how the system degrades over time for each operating regime. Using the framework of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), modeling and identification tools are developed that enable identification a HMM of degradation for each machine operation. In the sequel, monitoring and prognosis methods that naturally follow from the framework of HMMs are also presented. The modeling and monitoring methodology is then applied to a real-world semiconductor manufacturing process using data provided by a major manufacturer. For machines that operate in regimes that are continuously varying, a behavioral model is postulated that describes the input-output dynamics of the nor- mal system in different operating regimes. Monitoring methods are presented that have the capability to account for operating regime-dependent modeling accuracies and isolate faults that have not been anticipated and for which no fault models are available. By conducting fault detection in a regime-dependent fashion, changes in modeling errors that are due to operating regime changes can be successfully distinguished from changes that are due to truly faulty operation caused by changes in the system dynamics. Enabled by this, unanticipated faults can be isolated through proliferation of the fault detection through the various subsystems of the anoma- lous system. The FDD methodology is applied to detect and diagnose faults for a multiple-input multiple-output Exhaust Gas Recirculation system in a diesel engine. Finally, methods to facilitate the recovery of normal system behavior are detailed. Using the same local model structure that was pursued for behavioral models, it is envisioned that the nominal controller will be reconfigured to attempt to recover nominal behavior as much as possible. To enable this reconfiguration, methods for automated design of closed-loop controllers for the local modeling structure are presented. Using a model-predictive approach with rigorous stability considerations, it is shown that the controllers can track a reference trajectory. Such a trajectory could be generated by any model that satisfies the control objectives, for normal or faulty systems. The controllers are then demonstrated on a benchmark nonlinear system that is nonlinear in the control. / text

In this thesis, two problems are studied. The first problem is to find a technique to generate a particular type of failure information in real time for large flexible space structures (LFSSs). This problem is solved by using structured residuals. The failure information is then incorporated into an existing fault tolerant control scheme. The second problem is a ``spin-off'' from the first. Although the H-infinity sliding mode observer (SMO) cannot be applied to the colocated LFSS , its ability to do robust state and fault estimation of the SMO makes it suitable to be used in an integrated fault tolerant control (IFTC) scheme. We propose to combine the H-infinity SMO with a linear fault accommodation controller. Our IFTC scheme is closed loop stable, suppresses the effects of faults and enjoys enhanced robustness to disturbances. The effectiveness of the IFTC is illustrated through the control of a permanent magnet synchronous motor under actuator fault.