Multiple and simultaneous fault isolation with minimal fault indicating signals: a case study

This paper presents a formalized isolation technique for multiple and simultaneous failure diagnosis in the orbiter measurement unit during the rendezvous phase of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. The MSR mission is a spacecraft mission whose aim is to bring tangible samples from Mars to Earth for analysis. The proposed methodology aims at combining judiciously available hardware redundancy-based fault indicating signals with analytic-based fault indicating signals (i.e. residuals). The paper deals with the problem of finding the minimal number of analytic-based fault indicating signals for a given isolation task. To cope with the diagnosis problem, logical tools derived from the set theory are used. Simulation results are presented in order to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method.