Failure detection, identification and reconfiguration system for a redundant actuator assembly

Abstract In the paper a design of a Failure Detection, Identification and Reconfiguration (FDIR) System for a redundant actuator assembly is presented. The scheme assures that the output of the redundant actuator assembly is close to its desired value despite failures of individual actuators in the assembly. The reconfiguration re-allocates the control signals to the healthy actuators locally to compensate for the failure. In the paper the modeling of a double-redundant actuator assembly characterized by first-order dynamics of individual actuators is presented first. This is followed by the design of adaptive FDIR algorithms, and corresponding proofs of stability. The proposed approach is illustrated through computer simulations.