HRA - Intrinsically fault tolerant actuation through high redundancy

The aim of this paper is to summarise on-going research into a new method of providing fault tolerant actuators for high-integrity and/or safety-critical applications. The High Redundancy Actuator (HRA) project aims to exploit a large number of very small actuation elements to make up a single large...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Roger Dixon, Thomas Steffen, Jessica Davies, Argyrios C. Zolotas, John T. Pearson, X. Du
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Mechanical engineering not elsewhere classified
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Summary:The aim of this paper is to summarise on-going research into a new method of providing fault tolerant actuators for high-integrity and/or safety-critical applications. The High Redundancy Actuator (HRA) project aims to exploit a large number of very small actuation elements to make up a single large actuator. This is in contrast to current technology where a relatively low level of functional redundancy is used. The HRA elements are configured and controlled in such a way that faults in individual elements are inherently accommodated without resulting in a failure of the complete actuation system. The HRA project research challenges are outlined and progress to-date is discussed.