A fault tolerant control scheme based on sensor-actuation channel switching and dwell time

The present paper deals with a switching control scheme for a plant with multiple estimator-controller-actuator pairs. The scheme has to deal with specific problems originated by the switching between the different feedback loops and accommodate to faults in the observation channels (sensors outputs). The main contribution is a fault tolerant switching scheme with stability guarantees assured by a pre-imposed dwell-time. The detection and the fault tolerance capabilities are assured through set separation for the residual signals corresponding to healthy and faulty functioning. Another contribution of the paper resides in a recovery technique for faulty sensors which makes use of a virtual sensor whose estimation, based on an optimization procedure, minimizes recovery time.