Energetic approach to deal with faults in robot actuators

In this paper it is investigated, how the energy monitoring of robotic systems can be applied for detection and isolation of robot actuator faults. Firstly, the relations describing the energy balance of a robot are recalled. Then it is showed how the actuator faults influence the energy balance of the robot. The deviation of the robot energy from its normal balance is used to detect the presence of fault in the robot actuator. For fault isolation the set of fault energy patterns is defined. The fault induced energy deviation is compared with the elements of the fault energy pattern set using standard signal processing methods. The problems of fault identification and multiple fault detection are also treated. Simulation results are provided to show the applicability of the proposed fault detection and isolation method.