This course introduces students to the handling of faults in engineering systems. It starts from the basic definition of a fault and leads towards the design of systems so that they are tolerant of faults.  This involves detection, isolation and recovering a faulty system.

Teaching Sessions: 1 hour, twice per week
Laboratory Sessions: 3 hours each

None

None

50% Examination

50% Assignment

The aims of this course are to:

■ introduce the students to the methodologies involved in classifying and quantifying faults within engineering systems;

■ introduce the students to Fault Detection Techniques for engineering systems;

■ introduce the students to Fault Isolation Techniques in the context of engineering systems;

■ introduce the students to Reconfiguration and Redundancy methodologies to compensate for faulty sensors and actuators;

■ enable the students to appreciate the hardware implementation issues associated with these techniques.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ analyse reliability and failure rates of a system;

■ calculate the influence of faults in sensors, systems and actuators;

■ apply a range of methods for detecting faults in engineering systems;

■ develop methods to classify faults based on the symptoms detected;

■ show how systems can be designed to be tolerant to faults;

■ design and implement reconfiguration and redundancy approaches to engineering systems when faults are detected and isolated.

Students must attend the degree examination and submit at least 75% by weight of the other components of the course's summative assessment.

Students must attend the timetabled laboratory classes.

Students should attend at least 75% of the timetabled classes of the course.

Note that these are minimum requirements: good students will achieve far higher participation/submission rates.  Any student who misses an assessment or a significant number of classes because of illness or other good cause should report this by completing a MyCampus absence report.