Copyright <0 IFAC Artificial Intelligence in Real-Time Control,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1997
An approach for Fault Tolerant Controller Design Using Kalman
Filters and Fuzzy Logic
Athula Rajapakse
J
Kazoo Furuta Shunsuke Kondo
Department of Quantum Engineering and Systems Science, University of Tokyo
7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo 113, Japan
J Email: athula@rokoh.gen.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Abstract
An autonomous control system needs to provide adequate
control even under the presence of uncertainties such as
actuator or component failures, with a minimum or no human
intervention. We propose an approach for designing a
controller that can provide higher degree of autonomy by
accommodating the parametric failures occur in the plant. The
controller has a two layered structure. The first layer contains
the local controllers of various sub systems. The second layer
contains Kalman filter fault diagnosis and fuzzy logic fault
accommodation systems. A controller is implemented and
applied to control a simulation model of a chemical process
system. Simulation results demonstrate the ability of this
control system to diagnose and recover from a heater failure in
the chemical reactor heating system. Copyright © 1998 IFAC
Keywords: Autonomous Control, Fault Diagnosis, Fault
Accommodation, Fuzzy Logic Systems.
1. Introduction
Recent advances in computer and information technology has
enabled realization of more sophisticated control systems with
higher degree of autonomy. The added benefits of such control
systems include improved overall process system performance
due to better optimization of system interactions, less
downtime because of better fault accommodation, and
increased safety by allowing more human response time to
anomalous events. In most cases, and specifically for complex
process systems, the benefits of these advanced control systems
can far outweigh the additional controller complexity [1].
Complex process systems are usually controlled by
decomposing the process into a number of sub systems, each
having its own local controller designed to achieve a set of
control objectives within the subsystem. In such a
decentralized system, the coordinating or supervisory controller
plays an important role by coordinating the various subsystem
controllers avoiding potential conflicts between their
performance objectives (2). Although the local controllers are
designed to be robust and capable of meeting the local
objectives, they may not be capable of handling abnormal
situations such as actuator or component failures, because of
the limitations imposed by the abnormality. The supervisory
controller in an autonomous control system must be able to
provide an adequate control even under such situations, with a
minimum or no human intervention.
An approach to realize a controller capable of accommodating
faults occurring in the process system is presented in this
463
paper. The process considered is a chemical plant consisting of
a continuously stirred tank reactor and associated heating
system. The controller has a layered structure. The first layer
contains the local controllers while the second layer contains
fault detection and accommodation system. A set of adaptive
Extended Kalman Filters (EKFs) employed for combined state
and parameter estimation detect plant malfunctions from the
deviations in the estimated system parameters from their
respective designated values. If an abnormality is detected, the
fuzzy logic fault accommodation system will modify the set
points of the local controllers 'according to the information on
parameter changes, in order to minimize the effects of
abnormality.
The remaining part of this paper is organized as following.
Sections 2 of the paper briefly describes the process model.
Section 3 presents the controller structure. Section 4 gives the
steps involved in fault recovery process. The scheme for fault
diagnosis using EKFs is presented in Section 5. In Section 6,
the fault accommodation methodology is presented. Simulation
results presented in Section 7 is followed by the conclusion.
2. Process Model
The process model used for the demonstration of the proposed
controller design approach is a section of a fictitious chemical
process scheme. The system illustrated in Fig. 1 consists of a
non-isothermal continuously stirred tank reactor (CSlR) and
its heating system. At the normal operation, feed "A" from
preceding stage is pumped into the reactor at a constant rate
through the recovery heat exchanger primary side. The feed
undergoes an endothermic reaction at the reactor and converts
into the product. The outlet product stream from the reactor
passes through the heat exchanger secondary side. Reactor
temperature is controlled by a closed cycle heating water
system. Heating water is circulated at a constant rate. There are
two local controllers in the system: liquid level and
concentration controllers. The level controller maintains the
liquid level in the reactor at a desired value within the lower
and upper limits of 1.2m and l.7m respectively. The
concentration of 'A' in the product stream is required to be
manipulated within the range 300-500 mol/ml, in order to
optimize the yields of final product and byproducts in the
subsequent stages of the process scheme. Concentration of 'A'
in the reactor is indirectly controlled by changing the reactor
temperature through adjusting the power level of the heater in
the heating water system. The local controllers are fully
capable to control the plant variables within their limits under
normal conditions. The dynamic model of the CSlR was
adopted from [3] and it is given in Appendix-A. Dynamics of