Failure Analysis of Mechatronic Systems
The failure modes of a mechatronic system include failure modes of mechanical, electrical, computer, and control subsystems, which could be classified as hardware and software failures. The failure analysis of mechatronic systems consists of hardware and software fault detection, identification (diagnosis), isolation, and recovery (immediate or graceful recovery), which requires intelligent control. The hardware fault detection could be facilitated by redundant information on the system and/or by monitoring the performance of the system for a given/prescribed task. Information redundancy requires sensory system fusion and could provide information on the status of the system and its components, on the assigned task of the system, and the successful completion of the task in case of operator error or any unexpected change in the environment or for dynamic environment. The simplest monitoring method identifies two conditions (normal and abnormal) using sensor information/signal: if the