Control algorithms for fault-tolerant robots

When a fault-tolerant robot fails, its fault responsive system detects and identifies the failure. During the recovery process, reconfiguration of the system isolates the fault, and a new system model and a suitable controller attempt to completely compensate for the faulty condition without interrupting the robot's operation. In this paper, the authors address the recovery process for fault-tolerant serial robots when they experience actuator failure. For this purpose, the authors consider three controllers based on PID feedback, sliding control, and parameter adaptation methods. It is shown that the sliding control implemented with a boundary layer reduces the system errors efficiently when the errors are large, and the controller behaves like an ordinary PID feedback as the errors get smaller. Additionally, when failures cause uncertainty in system parameters, inclusion of parameter identification capability in the controller design is suggested. Although the work is valid for a general robot, simulation results are presented on a four-axis robot.<<ETX>>