Fault-tolerant Control Systems-An Introductory Overview

This paper presents an introductory overview on the development of fault-tolerant control systems. For this reason, the paper is written in a tutorial fashion to summarize some of the important results in this subject area deliberately without going into details in any of them. However, key references are provided from which interested readers can obtain more detailed information on a particular subject. It is necessary to mention that, throughout this paper, no efforts were made to provide an exhaustive coverage on the subject matter. In fact, it is far from it. The paper merely represents the view and experience of its author. It can very well be that some important issues or topics were left out unintentionally. If that is the case, the author sincerely apologizes in advance.After a brief account of fault-tolerant control systems, particularly on the original motivations, and the concept of redundancies, the paper reviews the development of fault-tolerant control systems with highlights to several important issues from a historical perspective. The general approaches to fault-tolerant control has been divided into passive, active, and hybrid approaches. The analysis techniques for active fault-tolerant control systems are also discussed. Practical applications of faulttolerant control are highlighted from a practical and industrial perspective. Finally, some critical issues in this area are discussed as open problems for future research/development in this emerging field.

This paper presents an introductory overview on the development of fault-toierant control systems. For this reason, the paper is written in a tutorial fashion to summarize some of the important results in this subject area deliberately without going into details in any of them. However, key references are provided from which interested readers can obtain more detailed information on a particular subject. It is necessary to mention that, throughout this paper, no efforts were made to provide an exhaustive coverage on the subject matter. In fact, it is far from it. The paper merely represents the view and experience of its author. It can very well be that some important issues or topics were left out unintentionally. If that is the case, the author sincerely apologizes in advance. After a brief account of fault-tolerant control systems, particularly on the original motivations, and the concept of redundancies, the paper reviews the development of fault-tolerant control systems with highlights to several important issues from a historical perspective. The general approaches to fault-tolerant control has been divided into passive, active, and hybrid approaches. The analysis techniques for active fault-tolerant control systems are also discussed. Practical applications of fault-tolerant control are highlighted from a practical and industrial perspective. Finally, some critical issues in this area are discussed as open problems for future research/development in this emerging field.