Optimal sensor distribution in fault tolerant systems

Sensor configuration is increasingly becoming important in large-scale industrial control systems. The pre-design of sensor placement could affect the control design objectives, the accuracy and reliability of measurement, the detectability of faults and the ability of fault tolerance. In this paper, it discusses the functionality of complementary sensors in fault detection issues, which starts from a baseline feedback control system in order to achieve the required specifics and introduces sensor selection to handle fault information for fault detection/tolerance capability. A DC motor control system is applied as a study case and simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed method.