Structural Methodologies for Distributed Fault Detection and Isolation

The increasing complexity and size of cyber-physical systems (e.g., aircraft, manufacturing processes, and power generation plants) is making it hard to develop centralized diagnosers that are reliable and efficient. In addition, advances in networking technology, along with the availability of inexpensive sensors and processors, are causing a shift in focus from centralized to more distributed diagnosers. This paper develops two structural approaches for distributed fault detection and isolation. The first method uses redundant equation sets for residual generation, referred to as minimal structurally-over-determined sets, and the second is based on the original model equations. We compare the diagnosis performance of the two algorithms and clarify the pros and cons of each method. A case study is used to demonstrate the two methods, and the results are discussed together with directions for future work