State Estimation in the Presence of Intermittent Actuator Faults

The problem of intermittent, random actuator faults is important in many applications, such as in networked systems, in which there may be intermittent losses of communication between the actuators and the plant. However, state estimation of such systems is rarely addressed, with the majority of the work focusing on fault-tolerant control. In this work, the Kalman filter is modified for state estimation of systems with intermittent actuator faults when the fault rate is known. The proposed estimator is then extended to the case when the actuator fault rate is unknown using the multiple model estimation algorithm. In addition, a sketch of a proof of convergence for this technique is provided. Several simulations involving a DC motor that experiences random actuator faults demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed techniques