Reconfiguration of an Adaptive Structure’s Control Loop Based on Diagnosed Sensor and Actuator Faults

Abstract

Adaptive high-rise buildings can achieve significantly reduced resource consumption by incorporating actuators, sensor systems, and a control unit into the structure to compensate for the reduced stiffness. A vital step toward the wide real-world viability of this concept is ensuring the long-term operational reliability of adaptive buildings even in case of components malfunctioning. This article presents a comprehensive mechanical model of a large-scale adaptive high-rise structure incorporating various sensor systems as well as different actuation principles. As a basis for the simulative validation under critical load scenarios, a detailed model for wind disturbances is derived, accounting for time-variant velocity and direction. A parity space-based fault diagnosis scheme is employed for the reliable diagnosis of faulty sensors and actuators. Based upon the fault diagnosis, a reconfiguration strategy for estimation and control in adaptive structures is proposed. Assembling these components yields a fault-tolerant control loop that automatically adapts to the emergence of faults in sensors and actuators. In exemplary simulation scenarios, the proposed approach is demonstrated to be effective, largely mitigating the faults’ impact and recovering the nominal performance.