8. Reconfigurability Analysis

Fault-tolerant control brings together several theoretic frameworks that are needed to treat the different problems it involves. This chapter addresses these problems from a global perspective that includes the specification and the development of control solutions, as well as the implementation and the evaluation of these solutions. Among many possible control problems, this chapter uses linear quadratic control theory to illustrate the above-mentioned problems, under the two possible fault-tolerance strategies, namely fault accommodation, where the controller parameters are adapted to the parameters of the faulty plant, and system reconfiguration, where the subset of system components in operation is changed (and so is of course the control law). A variety of other control approaches will be developed in the next chapter.