Development of synthesis method of functional diagnostic system for thrusters of underwater vehicles

Abstract

This paper presents a new synthesis method of functional diagnostic system for thrusters of underwater vehicles (UVs). This system provides detection, localization and identification of minor faults in thrusters of the UV. Proposed method involves two main stages. At the first stage, a bank of diagnostic observers is built to detect and localize the emerging faults. At the same time, each observer is constructed according to a special procedure in such a way as to be sensitive to a different set of the possible faults. At the second stage, the additional observers working in a sliding mode regime are synthesized in order to accurately estimate error values in signals obtained from the UV thruster sensors, and to evaluate deviations of the thruster parameters from their nominal values due to the faults. The results of the simulation show the efficiency and high quality of all synthesized observers.