Some basic ideas for intelligent fault tolerant control systems design

Abstract: Some basic ideas underlying the EU project IFATIS (intelligent fault tolerant control in integrated systems) are described. Faults in the plant (controlled system) as well as in the controllers (computer systems) are taken into account. Plant modules and controller modules are considered as resources. Needed application functions (partial processes) are to be allocated to such resources to run in a normal or degraded mode. In case of fault induced resource reduction, resource managers on different levels can take care of arbitration and allocation, thus providing for unrestricted continuation or grace-ful degradation. Some outlines concerning implementation and hardware/software architecture are presented. Copyright © 2002 IFA