High integrity control system architecture using digital computing platforms with rapid recovery
First Claim
1. A control system architecture for controlling a plant, the system comprising:
- a computing units system having a plurality of redundant processing units, each of the processing units being configured to generate at least one of a plurality of redundant position signals for the plant and where each processing unit is configured to self initiate rapid recovery; and
an adaptor coupled to the computing units system and configured to receive each of the position signals, to compute a mid-value for the position signals, and to initiate a rapid, recovery in one of the redundant processing units if the difference between the position signal generated by that processing unit and the mid-value exceeds a threshold value.
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Abstract
A control system architecture suitably includes sufficient computation redundancy and control command management to isolate and recover a faulted processor and/or to recover all processing units in the redundant system without adverse effects. Computational redundancy may be provided with multiple processors and/or processing units within computers or computing platforms. In addition to isolating and recovering from internal faults, various embodiments allow computing units to detect faults in other system elements such as sensors, adaptors, actuators and/or effectors. Further embodiments may also include one or more actuator adaptor units that detect faults in other system components and issue discrete instructions to trigger a recovery. In some embodiments, the recovery is performed within one or two computing frames, or otherwise in a short enough time period so as to have only minimal affects, if any, on system performance or redundancy.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A control system architecture for controlling a plant, the system comprising:
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a computing units system having a plurality of redundant processing units, each of the processing units being configured to generate at least one of a plurality of redundant position signals for the plant and where each processing unit is configured to self initiate rapid recovery; and
an adaptor coupled to the computing units system and configured to receive each of the position signals, to compute a mid-value for the position signals, and to initiate a rapid, recovery in one of the redundant processing units if the difference between the position signal generated by that processing unit and the mid-value exceeds a threshold value. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of controlling a plant, the method comprising:
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generating a plurality of redundant position signals, each of the position signals being generated by one of a plurality of redundant processing units and where each processing unit is configured to self initiate rapid recovery;
computing a mid-value for the redundant position signals; and
initiating a rapid recovery in one of the redundant processing units if the difference between the redundant position signal generated by that processing unit and the mid-value exceeds a threshold value. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method of operating an actuator adaptor, the method comprising:
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receiving a plurality of position signals, each of the position signals being produced by one of a plurality of processing units;
computing a mid-value for the position signals;
selecting a control output as a function of plurality of the position signals; and
initiating a rapid-recovery in at least one of the plurality of processing units when the difference between at least one of the position signals and the mid-value exceeds a pre-determined threshold.
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18. A method of recovering a control system, the method comprising:
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providing redundant processing units, wherein each of said redundant processing units is configured to perform a rapid recovery from a fault;
sensing a fault in one of said redundant processing units; and
initiating an essentially instantaneous rapid recovery in one of said redundant processing units in response to said fault. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification