Damage Tolerant Active Control: Concept and State of Art

Damage tolerant active control is a new research area related to fault tolerant control design methods applied to mechanical structures. It encompasses several techniques commonly used to design active vibration controllers and to detect and diagnose faults, as well to monitor structural integrity. Brief reviews of the common intersections of these areas are presented, with the purpose to clarify their interrelations and also to justify the new controller design paradigm. Some examples help to better understand the role of the new area.