Fault Tolerance Techniques For Spacecraft Control Computers

Comprehensive coverage of all aspects of space application oriented fault tolerance techniques • Experienced expert author working on fault tolerance for Chinese space program for almost three decades • Initiatively provides a systematic texts for the cutting-edge fault tolerance techniques in spacecraft control computer, with emphasis on practical engineering knowledge • Presents fundamental and advanced theories and technologies in a logical and easy-to-understand manner • Beneficial to readers inside and outside the area of space applications

This book provides a systematical and comprehensive description of some facets of modeling, designing, analyzing and exploring the control allocation and fault-tolerant control problems for over-actuated spacecraft attitude control system under actuator failures, system uncertainties and disturbances. The book intends to provide a unified platform for understanding and applicability of the fault-tolerant attitude control and control allocation for different purposes in aerospace engineering and some related fields. And it is particularly suited for readers who are interested to learn solutions in spacecraft attitude control system design and related engineering applications.

With spacecraft designs placing more emphasis on reduced cost, faster design time, and higher performance, it is easy to understand why more commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices are being used in space based applications. The COTS devices offer spacecraft designers shorter design-to- orbit times, lower system costs, orders of magnitude better performance, and a much better software availability than their radiation hardened (radhard) counterparts. The major drawback to using COTS devices in space is their increased susceptibility to the effects of radiation, single event upsets (SEUs) in particular. This thesis will focus on the implementation of a fault tolerant computer system. The hardware design presented here has two different benefits. First, the system can act as a software testbed, which allows testing of software fault tolerant techniques in the presence of radiation induced SEUs. This allows the testing of the software algorithms in the environment they were designed to operate in without the expense of being placed in orbit. Additionally, the design can be used as a hybrid fault tolerant computer system. By combining the masking ability of the hardware with supporting software, the system can mask out and reset processor errors in real time. The design layout will be presented using OrCAD schematics.

Fault-Tolerant Attitude Control of Spacecraft presents the fundamentals of spacecraft fault-tolerant attitude control systems, along with the most recent research and advanced, nonlinear control techniques. This book gives researchers a self-contained guide to the complex tasks of envisaging, designing, implementing and experimenting by presenting designs for integrated modeling, dynamics, fault-tolerant attitude control, and fault reconstruction for spacecraft. Specifically, the book gives a full literature review and presents preliminaries and mathematical models, robust fault-tolerant attitude control, fault-tolerant attitude control with actuator saturation, velocity-free fault tolerant attitude control, finite-time fault-tolerant attitude tracking control, and active fault-tolerant attitude contour. Finally, the book looks at the future of this interesting topic, offering readers a one-stop solution for those working on fault-tolerant attitude control for spacecraft. Presents the fundamentals of fault-tolerant attitude control systems for spacecraft in one practical solution Gives the latest research and thinking on nonlinear attitude control, fault tolerant control, and reliable attitude control Brings together concepts in fault control theory, fault diagnosis, and attitude control for spacecraft Covers advances in theory, technological aspects, and applications in spacecraft Presents detailed numerical and simulation results to assist engineers Offers a clear, systematic reference on fault-tolerant control and attitude control for spacecraft

Computers are currently used in a variety of critical applications, including systems for nuclear reactor control, flight control (both aircraft and spacecraft), and air traffic control. Moreover, experience has shown that the dependability of such systems is particularly sensitive to that of its software components, both the system software of the embedded computers and the application software they support. Software Performability: From Concepts to Applications addresses the construction and solution of analytic performability models for critical-application software. The book includes a review of general performability concepts along with notions which are peculiar to software performability. Since fault tolerance is widely recognized as a viable means for improving the dependability of computer system (beyond what can be achieved by fault prevention), the examples considered are fault-tolerant software systems that incorporate particular methods of design diversity and fault recovery. Software Performability: From Concepts to Applications will be of direct benefit to both practitioners and researchers in the area of performance and dependability evaluation, fault-tolerant computing, and dependable systems for critical applications. For practitioners, it supplies a basis for defining combined performance-dependability criteria (in the form of objective functions) that can be used to enhance the performability (performance/dependability) of existing software designs. For those with research interests in model-based evaluation, the book provides an analytic framework and a variety of performability modeling examples in an application context of recognized importance. The material contained in this book will both stimulate future research on related topics and, for teaching purposes, serve as a reference text in courses on computer system evaluation, fault-tolerant computing, and dependable high-performance computer systems.