AIRBUS State of the Art and Practices on FDI and FTC

This paper deals with industrial practices and strategies for Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) and Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) in aircraft by focusing mainly on a typical Airbus Electrical Flight Control System (EFCS). This system is a safety-critical one in the sense that catastrophic consequences may result from its failures. It is designed to meet very stringent requirements in terms of safety, availability and reliability that characterized the system dependability. Fault tolerance is designed into the system by the use of stringent processes and rules, which are summarized in the paper. The strategy for monitoring (fault detection) of the system components, as a part of the design for fault tolerance, is also described in this paper. Real application examples and implementation methodology are outlined. Finally, future trends and challenges are presented.