A Compensating Control for Systems with Intermittent Actuator Faults

The problem of intermittent and random actuator faults is important in many applications, especially in wireless systems where interruptions in communication between the plant, the actuators, and the sensors are not uncommon. Much of the work in this topic focuses on fault-tolerant control when the statistics of the faults are known a priori. In this work, the case where the statistics of the actuator faults are unknown is addressed. A modified Kalman filter is used to identify the unknown fault statistics, and this information is used in a technique that can compensate for the intermittent actuator faults. In addition to the theoretical analysis, several simulations involving a DC motor that experiences intermittent actuator faults are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed compensation method.