Separation of control response from fault detection for systems with critical response time

The health of system critical real time functions can be maintained in the presence of aberrant signals when three or more fully redundant channels are available. Threefold redundancy, or greater, enables the optimization of a signal's value, as a separate and very high priority process that is distinct from fault detection, diagnosis, and isolation. We discuss the implications of this process on the satisfaction of system integrity and availability requirements, and present a spectrum of algorithms for protecting the system from an aberrant, potentially faulty, signal.