Multiprocessor Fault-Tolerant Digital Control System

Abstract

A design and implementation of a fault-tolerant digital control system is proposed. The system incorporates 1) analytical redundancy based on Luenberger observers to detect, identify and monitor faults which occur in the controlled process such as sensor, actuator, A/D and D/A faults and excessive load torques and 2) triple modular redundancy of processors to provide tolerance to permanent and transient failures within the control computer such as component failures and on- board communication bus faults. The digital control system is implemented with three single board computers in a shared bus, common memory configuration. The operation of the proposed fault tolerant multiprocessor system was evaluated in real-time using an analog computer to simulate the process.