FAULTDETECTION AND ISOLATION IN FLUIDPOWER

SYSTEMS USING A PARAMETRIC ESTIMATION METHOD

R. Song and N. Sepehri

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
The University of Manitoba
Winnipeg,Manitoba, Canada R3T 5V6

Abstract
Since the states or the parameters of a monitored
process are closer to the process faults in tenns of signal
pow, observer-based state and system parameter
estimation theories, are well developed in Fault Detection
and Isolation (FDI) for Linear Time Invariant (LTI)
systems. However, for systems, where explicit models are
diflcult to derive, the finctional redundancy based FDI
strategv, derived for LTI systems, cannot be directly
implemented. In this paper, a parametric estimation
method for FDI is employed for an electro-hydraulic
system. Based on a set of criteria, an Auto-Regressive
model with eVogenous input (ARX) is j r s t selected to
approximate the dynamic behavior of the system. Next,
the relationship between system's supply pressure and the
coeflcients of the ARX model is studied through
experiments. It is shown that direct threshold checking on
estimated model coeflcients can be employed as a FDI
strategv to detect and isolate faults originating fiom
incorrect supplyingpump pressure.
Keywords: Fault detection and isolation: Auto-regressive
with dogenous input model; Least square identijkation.
1. INTRODUCTION
Normally, both the input signals to and the output signals
from the monitored process are required for a
functionality redundant FDI scheme. The scheme is
therefore designed under some assumptions that [ 11:
(i) Either the dynamic nature of the system being
monitored is reasonably well known.
(ii) Or it is possible to determine the values of certain
physical parameters ky an on-line identification
techque .
Since the states or the parameters of a monitored
process are closer to the process faults in terms of signal
flow, observer based state estimation theories and system
parameter estimation technologies are well developed and
employed in FDI for LT[ systems. For example,
Unknown Input Observer (UIO) method provides a robust
residual generation in the presence of unknown inputs,
system disturbances, modeling uncertainties, physical
parameter variation and measurement noise. Least Square
(T.,S) parameter estimation method provides a powerlid
way of detecting faults in dynamic systems by on-line
monitoring of the estimates of the system's physical
parameters. However for the (caseswhere explicit system
models can not be derived or for nonlinear dynamic
systems, the application of UIO or LS parameter
estimation methods becomes very challenging [2,3].

The demand for robust and fault-tolerant control
systems is attracting much attention for many applications
that are complex, costly and essential to our everyday life.
Examples of such applications are power systems,
aircraft, and telecommunication networks. Traditional
FDI systems are based on hardware redundancy and a
voting logic. With the rapid development of inexpensive,
high-speed computers and digital signal processing
technologies, FDI systems based on functional
redundancy (a software approach) is becoming
increasingly popular.
In this paper, a framework for fault hagnosis in
feature space is outlined. The parameter estimation
method for LTI system is extended to extract features
existmg in input and output data of the monitored process.
The proposed framework is demonstrated by detecting
incorrect supply pump pressure in an electro-hydraulic
servo-positioning system. It is shown that faults
originating from incorrect supply pressure are
successfully detected. It is also shown that increased
pump pressure fault can be isolated from decreased pump
pressure fault.

Proceedings of the 2002 Canadian Conference

on Electrical & Computer Engineering
0-7803-7514-9/02/$17.00 8 2002 IEEE
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2. OUTLINE OF THE PROCEDURE
The FDI scheme for general systems with
nonlinear dynamic or those with unlcnown models, is
shown in Figure 1.
Processing 4
L
. 0
I Decisian
Fadt I Since the only information available from the
Figure 1 General flowchart of fault diagnosis.
With reference to Figure 1, when the monitored
process is running, input and output signals are sampled at
a sampling interval. Once the signals are collected, they
are processed by digital signal processing methods such
as buffering, re-sampling, de-trending or filtering, so that
only the most important features are left for fault
detection and isolation purpose.
The second task during fault diagnosis is feature
extraction. A feature is a function of one or more
measurements, computed so that it quantifies significant
characteristics of the object. The feature extraction
process produces a set of features that, together, comprise
the feature vector. It is productive to conceptualize an n -
dimensional space in which all possible n -element
feature vectors reside. Thus, any particular object will
correspond to a point in feature space [4]. The task of FDI
is then to find the decision surface separating the points
corresponding to normal condition from those
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corresponding to various fault conditions. A two-
dimensional FDI example in feature space is shown in
Figure 2.
Feature I
~NarmalConditionBFaultICondition
Fault I1 C andition - Decision Swface
Figure 2 A 2-dimension feature space.
monitoring system is the input and output data pairs, a
dn-ect way to extract features is to express the current
output as a function of the current input, past m inputs
and past n outputs. The structure of this function
determines how the available information is organized. As
such, the coefficientsof this function are used to represent
features. Here, we use the following three criteria in
selecting model structure:
(i) For the selected model structure, a powerful on-
line mode1 parameter estimation method should
be available. From tlus point of view, since an
artificial neural network needs long time to
converge, it is not the choice in this paper.
(ii) For each specific operating condition, the
variance of the estimated model parameters
should be as small as possible. Large variance
does not lend itself to a proper fault detection and
isolation.
(iii) The estimated model should approximate the
behavior of the monitored system as closely as
possible.
Although linear models, such as ARX, Output
Error (OE) model, can not exactly represent the dynamic
characteristicof the system for all ranges of operation, for
specific applications, they can still be used to approximate
the input and output relationship of the system.Here, we
use an ARX model along with LS parameter identification
method towards fault detection and isolation of hydraulic
systems.
After selecting the model structure, the feature
space is constructed and the model coefficients.determine
the position of the point, which represents the monitored
system in this feature space. Usually, it is difficult to
obtain the values of the physical parameters from the Electrohydraulic Valve
estimated model coefficients. The relationship between
model coefficients and physical parameters has to be Power Supply Unit
determined empirically. For the proposed FDI scheme,
Ivlein Actuator
the following definitionsare made:
Slave Actuator
(i) If a fault condition does not change the position of
points representing normal condition in a feature Encoder
space, the fault is said to be undetectable.
(ii) If two fault conditions affect the position of a
feature point in the same way, these two faults Figure 3 Electro-hydraulic actuator test station.
cannot be isolated.
Feature classification is to reach the decision
surface, which separates the points representing normal
working condition from fault conditions. This task is
achieved by designing a proper classifier, such as direct
threshold checking, minimum distance classifier, and
Neural Network classifier [5]. Once an unidentified
feature point is introduced to a classifier, it will make the
decision as to where the point belongs.

3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Figure 4 System block diagram.

This FDI framework presented here was
implemented on the newly constructed electro-hydraulic
actuator shown in Figure 3. It consists of an electro-
hydraulic valve, a power supply unit and an actuator. The
computer system, used for control and monitoring
purposes, is a personal computer with a Pentium-I11 CPU
and it runs under Windows 98 operating system. The
communication between the computer and the test station
is carried out by two I/O boards. The CIO-DAS16F
board converts digital control signals to analog ones and
sends them to the test station. The Keithley quadrature
encoder board measures the displacement of the hydraulic
cylinder’spush rod.
In this study, the actuator was programmed to trace a
sinusoid reference signal with the amplitude of 1 inch and
the frequency of 0.5 Hz under a d@al proportional
controller within the vicinity of the middle stroke of the
actuator. The system block diagram is shown in Figure 4.
The sampling time for both control and monitoring
purposes was set to T, = 5 ms. The normal operating
supply pump pressure was chosen to be approximately
2000 psi.
Typical reference signal, r , the control signal, U ,
and the output (displacement y ), for the system running
undler the normal condition is shown in Figure 5. The
following ARX model was found to adequately represent
the behavior of the system:
As the main actuator moves back and forth, the
operating point of this hydraulic system changes. Thus
recursive LS identificationmethod [6] will lead to a large
variance in the estimated coefficients. In this work, batch

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 0.05I I
n
& lo3
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J
'7
I
0 20 40 60 .& 0.5
Time (s)
I
n
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~........
-2
0
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I I..,

20
I . , . ' . . . ~ . . . . . . . .

40
I
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60
Time (s)
0.05
n
83
? O
I I 0 20 40 60
-0.05I I
Time [s)
0 20 40 60 0
Time (s)
Figure 5 Reference, control and output signals.

LS method [6] is used to estimate the coefficients of the

selected ARX model. In order to substantiate the use of
batch LS, the estimated model coefficients and the error
signal between the system output and the model output
under the normal operation are presented for both batch
and recursive LS methods. Figures 6 and 7 show the
-
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U
-1
I!

2
-

0
'
[
0 CL

10'"
20
. Time [s)
40
. ,
I
60

results. Figure 7 shows that although recursive LS method L

0
can model the system with a better approximation, the -2
variances of the estimated coefficients are much larger
than those of the batch LS. -4 '
0
.
20 40
I

Figure 8 shows the manner in which a change in
the supply pressure affects the values of the estimated
model coefficients. As is seen, 4 changes proportionally
with a change in the supply pump pressure. Although U,
and u2 are also affected, the relationship between the
change in the supply pressure and changes in U, and u2 is
not clear. Thus, a threshold checking on b, is used to
detect the faults due incorrect supply pressure. The
following fault detection and isolation is established to
detect faults due to incorrect supply pressure:
If b, >6.700e-4, the monitoring system assumes that
the system is worlung under increased supply
pressure.
If bl c6.400e-4, the monitoring system assumes that
the system is working under decreased supply pump
pressure.
60
Time [s)
Figure 6 Estimated model coefficients and error utilizing
a batch LS identification under normal operating
condition.
Figure 9 shows the performance of the FDI
technique presented here. In this experiment, the system
first operated under normal condition, i.e., Ps=2,000psi.
At b-13 sec. the pump pressure was increased to 2,500psi
and at k 2 8 sec., the supply pressure was reduced to
1,500psi. The estimated coefficients and the upper and
lower bands for b, are shown in Figure 9. As is seen,
given the threshold checking on b, ,one can detect faults
originating from incorrect pump pressure. It is also seen

- 147 -
that the fault condition between increased and decreased hydraulic functions made it unfeasible to derive an
pump pressure can be isolated. explicit mathematical model from the system's physical
parameters. A particular test, i.e., tracking a 0.5Hz
sinusoidal reference signal with magnitude of 1 inch and
IO-^ under a high gain proportio~E, controller, was considered.

'r-----l An A R X model was selected to represent the relationshp

s
between the steady-state input and output pairs of the
systeim. The batch linear square method was used for on-
lo" 0.5 line r:stimation of the coefficients of the selected ARX
model. Since a proper analytical mapping function
between the model coefficients and the system's physical
1 - 0 parameters cannot be established, the effects of a change
0 20 40 60 in the physical parameters on the estimated model
coefficients were explored empirically. In particular, the
effects of variation in the pump pressure on the
coefficients of the selected model were investigated and a
direct threshold-checking scheme on a selected model
g-0.15 coefficient was constructed.

-0.3 ' .I . 1
0 20 40 60 -/ -c IO-'
Time [SI
O 4

< -0.5 I 5.5

-1 0 20 40 60
0 20 40 60 Time [s)
Time [s) -0.1 7 - 1

w' -2
-0.2 - A
-4 0 20 40 60
0 20 40 60 Time (s)
Time Is) -0.8 7 - 1

Figure 7 Estimated model coefficients and error utilizing

a recursive LS identification under normal operating
condition.

4. CONCLUSIONS
-0.85

-0.9 --
0 20
Time Is)
40 60

This paper presented a fault detection and isolation Figure 8 Estimated model coefficients under Mferent
method based on a linear time invariant parameter
estimation technique. The method was successfully
supply pump pressure: "+"
represents P, = 2,500 psi; ".'I
implemented to detect and isolate faults due to inconect represents P, = 2,000 psi; 'I*" represents P, = 1,700 psi;
pump pressure in an electo-hydraulic servo positioning "x"represents P, = 1,500 psi.
system. The inherent nonlinear characteristics of

- 148 -
 - - ioe4 increased and decreased pump pressure faults can be
I C .
r .d I I isolated.
In future work, fault detection and isolation can
tried for the fault conditions originating from different
physical parameters. Also, different feature classifiers
than direct threshold checking on the estimated
F F
coefficients can be employed to achieve better fault
Q.Q

0 20 40 60 detection and isolation performance.

References

-0.2 '
0 20 40
I
60
[ 11 R.N. Clark, P.M. Frank and R.J. Patton, "Chapter 1:
Fault Diagnosis in Dynamic Systems Theory and

;:".
Applications (Patton, Frank and Clark, eds.)", Prentice
Time (s) Hall, Hertfordshire,UK, 1989.
[2] P.M. Frank and J. Wunnenberg, "Chapter 3: Fault
Diagnosis in Dynamic Systems Theory and Applications
(Patton, Frank and Clark, eds.)", Prentice Hall,
Hertfordshire,UK, 1989.
-0.9 [3] R 1semnt-1, "Chapter 7: Fault Diagnosis in Dynamic
0 20 40 60 Systems Theory and Applications (Patton, Frank and
Time [s) Clark, eds.)", Prentice Hall, Hertfordshire, UK, 1989.
Figure 9 Detection and isolation of incorrect pump [4] K.R. Castleman, "Digital Image Processing", Prentice
pressure faults. Hall, NJ, 1997.
[5] R.C. Gonzalez and R.E. Woods, "Digital Image
Processing", Addison-Wesley,MA, 1991.
It was shown that the threshold checking can detect
faults due to incorrect supply pump pressure. It was also [6]L. Ljung and T. SoderstromT. ,"Theory and Practice
experimentally demonstrated that conditions due to of Recursive Identification", MIT press, MA, 1983.

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