Failure Detection for Multiple Input Systems

The overall goal of this research is to develop a system that is resistant or tolerant of sensor failures. The plan is to incorporate multiple sensors in an electronic system and then take the average of the sensors as the system output. If a sensor fails, the failure is detected, and the processing hardware will be "re-programmed" based on evolvable hardware principles to take the average of the remaining input sensors. A key aspect of this program is how to detect when one out of N sensors fails. This paper describes the use of a one-dimensional (1-D) Kalman filter to detect a sensor failure by observing the average of N sensors together. The paper discusses the failure detection algorithm and then gives results for the algorithm based on computer simulations and then actual laboratory measurements.