A new type of reliable control system using decision by majority

✍ Scribed by Koichi Suyama

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 231 KB
• Volume: 81
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 8756-663X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6432(199802)81:2<46::aid-ecjb6>3.0.co;2-5

✦ Synopsis

Recently, safety measures for a control system against control device failures, especially against sensor failures, has become important. Control theory for designing a compensator such that the stability of the total control system can be maintained against possible failures in such control devices has been studied. This is called reliable control. However, because of problems with performance deterioration when some sensors are out of order and the restricted class of control systems to which it can be applied, reliable control has not been put to practical use. Based on the same concept as passive redundancy, this paper considers a situation in which several redundant sensors for the output of a controlled object are in operation simultaneously and independently. We direct attention to a method for using the redundant information from the sensors and propose a new type of control system where decision by majority is introduced. This idea of tolerance to sensor failures presents a way of overcoming the problems with conventional reliable control.