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Published in IET Control Theory and Applications

Received on 21st June 2007
Revised on 27th April 2008
doi: 10.1049/iet-cta:20070216

ISSN 1751-8644

Adaptive neural-networks-based fault

detection and diagnosis using
unmeasured states
C.-S. Liu S.-J. Zhang S.-S. Hu
College of Automation Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016,
People’s Republic of China
E-mail: liuchsh@nuaa.edu.cn

Abstract: Fault detection and diagnosis play important roles in modern engineering systems. A number of fault
diagnosis (FD) approaches for nonlinear systems have been proposed. But, most of the achievements are based on
the assumptions that the systems models are known, and states of systems are measurable. A novel FD
architecture for a class of unknown nonlinear systems with unmeasured states has been investigated. A general
radial basis function (RBF) neural network is used to approximate the model of unknown system, an adaptive RBF
neural network with on-line updated centre, and the width vector of ‘Gaussian’ function is used to approximate
the model of fault. A nonlinear state observer is designed to estimate system states that are inputs to the neural
networks. The stability analysis for the system is given, and the adaptive parameter-updating laws are derived using
Lyapunov theory. Simulation examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

1 Introduction appropriate adaptive parameter laws in [8]. A learning

The main reason for the studies for fault detection and
diagnosis lies in that there is an increasing demand for
high reliability and safety in many complex industry
processes. A lot of fruitful results can be found in several
excellent papers, such as [1 – 3]. Most design schemes of
fault diagnosis (FD) architectures for dynamics systems are
based on analytical model approaches [4 – 7]. The appeal of
model-based FD schemes is that there is no need of
additional physical instrumentation in the system. However,
a problem encountered in applying analytical model
approaches to FD is the derivation of a reasonable accurate
mathematical model of physical system. Unavoidable
modelling uncertainties, which arise due to modelling errors,
time variations and measurement noise, deteriorate the
performance of FD schemes by causing false alarms. This
necessitates the development of robust FD scheme in which
the performance of FD is not sensitive to modelling
uncertainties. An adaptive observer has been employed to
detect and diagnose the faults in the systems with
uncertainties; a residual generator is designed to both
detection and diagnosis of the nature of the faults via the
approach using on-line approximator to detect and diagnose
nonlinear fault is presented in [9]. In order to improve
robustness of model-based FD architectures, a robust FD
scheme for abrupt and incipient fault in nonlinear uncertain
dynamic systems is studied in [10]. These methods have
been proven to be capable of successfully detecting and
diagnosing certain types of system fault under the conditions
that all state variables are measurable and the model error is
as small as possible. For a complex physical system, it is
difficult to obtain its mathematical model and all measurable
states. In order to relax condition of measurability of states,
an FD method is developed [11] in which a local
diffeomorphism is used to transform the system into a new
system where the fault is a nonlinear function of the
measurable input and output variables instead of the input
and the full state variables. However, when dealing with
practical application, the major difficulty of the method in
[11] is associated with the local diffeomorphism assumption
that cannot be satisfied, since most of the faults in dynamic
systems are unknown, which limited the application of the
method. Owing to the universal approximation, learning and
adaptation abilities, neural networks are widely used in

1066 IET Control Theory Appl., 2008, Vol. 2, No. 12, pp. 1066 – 1076
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nonlinear systems [12, 13]. To the authors’ knowledge, few
neural networks FD schemes for unknown nonlinear
systems with unmeasured states have been done.
Motivated by these considerations, this paper proposes a
novel FD approach for unknown nonlinear system with
unmeasured states. A general radial basis function (RBF)
neural network is used to approximate the model of
unknown system, an adaptive RBF neural network with
on-line updated centre and the width vector of ‘Gaussian’
function is used to approximate the model of fault. A state
observer is designed in order to estimate systems states that
are input to the neural networks. Parameters updating laws
are derived based on Lyapunov theory [14]. With the
proposed diagnosis scheme, the uniform ultimate
boundness of all signals can be guaranteed, and the error
between system fault and estimated fault model can be
made arbitrarily small by suitably choosing design
parameters.
This paper is organised as follows. In Section 2, a general
representation of nonlinear systems is presented. In
Section 3, the design scheme of observer and analysis of
algorithms are given. In Section 4, the fault detection is
analysed. In Section 5, a design methodology for FD and
the stability analysis are developed. In Section 6, simulation
examples are given to illustrate the major procedure of
the method. Finally, some conclusions are illustrated in
Section 7.
Notation: The following notations and definitions will
extensively be used throughout the paper. k.k denotes the
usual Euclidean norm of a vector. In case where y is a
scalar, jyj denotes its absolute value. If A is a matrix, then
kAk denotes the Frobenius matrix norm, defined as
X Remark 1: For convenience, the fault function j (x) is
kAk2 ¼ jaij j2 ¼ tr(A T A)
ij
where tr(.) denotes the trace of a matrix.
Let d(t) be a vector function of time, then
ð 1 1=2
kd k2 ; kd (t)k2 d t
0 for modelling nonlinear system because of its good capabilities
and
kd k1 ; sup kd (t)k
t0
We will say that d (t) [ L2 when kdk2 is finite. Similarly, we
will say that d (t) [ L1 when kdk1 is finite. arg is abbreviated
from argument, K  ¼ arg min J (K ) represents K which can
minimise index J(K ).
IET Control Theory Appl., 2008, Vol. 2, No. 12, pp. 1066 – 1076
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2 Representation of systems
Consider a class of multivariable nonlinear dynamic systems
described by the differential equation
x_ ¼ f1 (x, u) þ b(t  T )j(x)
(1)
y ¼ Cx
where x [ R n is the unmeasured state vector, u [ R m is
the input vector and y [ R p is the output vector.
f1 (x, u) : Rn  Rm ! Rn and j(x) : Rn ! Rn are unknown
smooth vector fields, representing the dynamics of system
and the nonlinear fault function, C is known. b(t  T ) is a
matrix function representing the time profiles of fault,
where T denotes the unknown fault occurrence time. The
fault time profile b(.) is assumed to be a diagonal matrix of
the form [9]
b(t  T ) ¼ diag(b1 (t  T ), b2 (t  T ), . . . , bn (t  T ))
where bi : R ! R is a function representing the profile of a
fault affecting the ith state equation, i ¼ 1, . . . , n. More
specifically, in this paper, the abrupt fault with time profiles
is considered, because the diagnosis for slowly varying
faults or fault prediction is another complex problem.

1 tT
Choosing bi (t  T ) ¼
0 t,T
Then system (1) can be represented by
x_ ¼ A1 x þ f (x, u) þ b(t  T )j(x) (2)
where f (x, u) ¼ f1 (x, u)  A1 x, A1 is to be designed such that
A1 , C is observable.
dependent on the state vector x. But, the diagnosis method
in this paper will also be effective when the fault function
j (x, u) includes the state x and the input u, in which the
inputs of the neural network are u and x^ instead of only x^ .
3 Observer design
In control engineering, RBF network is usually used as a tool
in function approximation. If the states can be available for
measurement, then the following RBF network similar to
[15] is used to approximate the continuous unknown
dynamics f (x, u)
f (x, u) ¼ B0 W0 S0 (X ) þ 11 (X ) (3)
and the output of neural network is f^ (x, u) ¼ B0 W
^ 0 S0 (X ),
where X ¼ [xT uT ]T [ RN (N ¼ n þ m), X [ Ad , RN ,
Ad is a compact set, W0 [ Rnk is the ideal weight
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matrix, that is satisfying the following condition Theorem 1: Consider the nonlinear system (4), the state
observer (5) and the error equation (6), assume that there
W0 ¼ arg min {supX [Ad j f (x, u)  B0 W0 S0 (X )j} exists a set Ad large enough to satisfy Assumptions 1 and 2,
W0
if the following parameter updating law is adopted, then e
where S0 (x, u) [ Rk is the Gaussian function vector, Gaussian is uniformly ultimately bounded, that is e [ L1
function is chosen as si (x) ¼ exp(kx  ci k2 =s2i ) with centre
vector ci and width si , k is the number of the neurons. _^ T T
W 0 ¼ g0 L0 ey S0 (^
x, u) (7)
B0 [ Rnn is a matrix to be designed, 11 (X ) is a neural
network approximation error.
where L0 [ Rpn , B0 [ Rnn satisfying PB0 ¼ C T L0 , P ¼
Assumption 1: There exists an ideal weight matrix W0 , so P T . 0,  (A T P þ PA) ¼ Q . 0, ey ¼ y^  y ¼ Ce, g0 . 0
 for all X [ Ad , 10 and W
that j11 (X )j  10 and kW0 k  W  is the parameter to be designed.
are positive constants.
Proof: The Lyapunov function can be chosen as
However, the states are immeasurable in this paper; the
real input of neural network should be estimated state
1 1 ~ T0 W
vector x^ , and its output is f^ (^x, u). V ¼ eT Pe þ tr(W ~ 0) (8)
2 2g0
Where f^ (^x, u) ¼ B0 W
^ 0 S0 (^x, u), W
^ 0 is an estimated matrix of
_~ _^ T T
W0 . By differentiating (8) and applying W 0 ¼ W 0 ¼ g0 L0 ey S0
(^x, u), we obtain
If there is no fault, from (3), (2) can be rewritten as
1
x_ ¼ A1 x þ B0 W0 S0 (x, u) þ 11 (X ) (4) V_ ¼  eT Qe þ eT P1 þ eyT L0 W ~ 0 S0 (^x, u)
2
~ 0)
 tr(S0 (^x, u)eyT L0 W (9)
To estimate the system states, a Luenberger-like observer
based on linear system counterpart [16] is constructed
Since
x_^ ¼ A1 x^ þ B0 W
^ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ G(y  y^ ) (5)
~ 0 S0 (^x, u) ¼ tr(eyT L0 W
eyT L0 W ~ 0 S0 (^x, u))
where x^ is an estimate of x, y^ ¼ C x^ .
~ 0)
¼ tr(S0 (^x, u)eyT L0 W (10)
Defining e ¼ x^  x. From (4) and (5), the following state
error equation is obtained then
^ 0 S0 (^x, u)  B0 W0 S0 (x, u)  11 (X )
e_ ¼ Ae þ B0 W 1 1
(6) V_ ¼  eT Qe þ eT P1   l1 eT e þ eT P1
~ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ
¼ Ae þ B0 W B0 W0 S~ 0 (x, x^ , u)  11 (X ) 2 2
 
1 T 1 T 4 T
¼  l1 e e  l1 e e  e P1 (11)
or 4 4 l1
~ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ 1
e_ ¼ Ae þ B0 W
where l1 is the minimum eigenvalue of Q.
where W ~0¼W ^ 0  W0 , 1 ¼ B0 W0 S~ 0 (x, x^ , u)  11 (X ),
~S 0 ¼ S0 (^x, u)  S0 (x, u), A ¼ A1  GC. Using the fact that eT e  (4=l1 )eT P1  (4= l21 )1T P T P1,
the following inequality holds
According to the linear system theory, A can be designed
as a Hurwitz matrix, which is guaranteed by the condition 1 1 1
that A1 , C is observable. V_   l1 eT e þ 1T PP1   l1 kek2
4 l1 4

It is obvious that 1 is affected by both the state error and l22 1 l2

þ k1k2   l1 kek2 þ 2 1 20 (12)
the RBF network approximation error. l1 4 l1

Assumption 2: 1 is bounded on the compact set Ad , or where l2 is the maximum eigenvalue of P.

k1k  1̄0 .
The condition kek  (2l2 =l1 )10 renders V_  0, which
Assumption 2 is reasonable according to the property of implies e [ L1 . The error e can be made arbitrarily small
Gaussian function and Assumption 1. by choosing the suitable design parameters l1 , l2 etc. A

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4 Fault detection analysis The fault can be modelled as

Fault detection plays an important role in model-based FD; it

carries information regarding the faults, and decides the time j(x) ¼ BW  S(x, d  , s ) þ 12 (x) (16)
to diagnose faults.
where W, d , s are the ideal weight matrix, the centre
Rewrite the error equation (6) as vector and the width vector, S(x, d  , s ) ¼ {si }, si ¼
si (kx  di k, si ), W  [ Rnq , S(x, d  , s ) [ Rq1 , di [
~ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ 1,
e_ ¼ Ae þ B0 W t [ [0, T ] (13) Rn1 , d  ¼ [d1T    dqT ] [ Rk0 1 , s [ Rq , k0 ¼ n  q, q
is the neuron number of the neural network to model
ðt system fault.
ey (t) ¼ Ce(t) ¼ C{exp(At)e(0) þ exp(A(t  t)) Assumption 3: There exist an ideal weight matrix W and
0
ideal vectors d  , s , such that k12 (x)k , 1̄(1̄ . 0) for all
~ 0 S0 (^x(t), u(t)) þ 1(t)] d t}
 [B0 W (14) X [ Ad , also there exist a constant matrix W̄ and constant
 , kd  k  d and ks k  s .
vectors d̄, s̄, satisfying kW  k  W
From k exp(At)k2  m exp( at)[11] and Assumptions 1 and
2, we obtain Equation (15) can be written as

key (t)k  kCk{mke(0)k x_ ¼ A1 x þ B0 W0 S0 (x, u) þ BW  S(x, d  , s ) þ d (t  T )

ðt
pffiffiffi (17)
~ 0 k þ 1̄0 ] d t}
þ m exp( a(t  t))[ nkB0 k  kW
0
" pffiffiffi # where d ¼ 11 (x, u) þ 12 (x) denotes the approximation error
nkB0 k  kW~ 0 k þ 1̄0
 m ke(0)k þ of RBF networks.
a
The observer with system fault is constructed as
Note that A is Hurwitz, so there exist m and a satisfying the
above inequality [11].
x_^ ¼ A1 x^ þ B0 W
^ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ BW
^ S(^x, d^ , s^ ) þ G(y  y^ ) (18)
pffiffiffi ~ 0 k þ 1̄0 =a). Therefore
Let a0 ¼ ke(0)k þ ( nkB0 k  kW
when key (t)k  e0 , no fault occurs; when key (t)k . e0 , fault It is obvious that the initial condition should be chosen as
can be detected. Where e0 ¼ ma0 is a pre-specified W^ (0) ¼ 0, in order to make the output of fault
threshold, it decides when the fault approximator starts to approximator being zero prior to fault occurrence, that
work. It is obvious that the larger threshold e0 may be ^ x, d^ , s^ ) ¼ 0(t  T).
is BWS(^
possible to cause a missed detection; the smaller threshold
e0 may be possible to cause a false alarm. Therefore a trade- From (17) and (18), we can obtain the error equation
off for e0 should be made according to a real system.
^ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ BWS(^
e_ ¼ Ae þ B0 W ^ x, d^ , s^ )
5 Fault approximator and  B0 W0 S0 (x, u)  BW S(x, d  , s )  d (19)
stability analysis
or
After fault occurrence, from (2), we obtain

x_ ¼ A1 x þ f (x, u) þ j(x) (t  T ) (15) ~ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ B0 W0 S~ 0 þ BWS(^

e_ ¼ Ae þ B0 W ^ x, d^ , s^ )

 BW  S(^x, d  , s ) þ BW  S~  d (20)
The outputs f^ (^x, u), ĵ (^x) of two RBF networks are
used to approximate f (x, u), j(x), respectively, where
f^ (^x, u) ¼ B0 W
^ 0 S0 (^x, u), ĵ (^x) ¼ BWS(^
^ x). where S~ ¼ S(^x, d  , s )  S(x, d  , s ).

The approximating property for the nonlinear model The Taylor’s series of S(^x, d  , s ) is expanded at (d^ , s^ ),
depends on the centre vector and width vector of ‘Gaussian’ that is
function. It is difficult to choose centre vectors and width
vectors of two ‘Gaussian’ functions by trial and error.
S(^x, d  , s ) ¼ S(^x, d^ , s^ )  Sd0^ d~  Ss0^ s~ þ O()
Hence, an adaptive RBF network is used to approximate
the system fault, that is the parameter vectors d and s are
on-line updated. where d~ ¼ d^  d  , s~ ¼ s^  s , Sd0^ ¼ @S=@djd ¼d^ [ Rqk0 ,

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Sŝ0 ¼ @S=@sjs¼s^ [ Rqq . Then, we obtain system states should remain bounded after the occurrence
of a fault.
BW  S(^x, d  , s ) ¼ BW S(^x, d^ , s^ )  BW  Sd0^ d~
3. The knowledge of fault-free system is not used at all in the
^ x, d^ , s^ )
 BW Ss0^ s~ þ BW O() ¼ BWS(^ parameter-updating laws, so the FD approach proposed in
~ x, d, ^ 0^ d~ þ BWS
^ s^ )  BWS ~ 0^ d~ the paper can be applied to the system with unknown model.
 BWS(^ d d

^ s0^ s~ þ BWS
 BWS ~ s0^ s~ þ BW O() (21) Lemma 2: Parameter-updating laws (23) – (25) guarantee
that the following inequalities hold
Substituting (21) into (20), the error equation can be written   
as tr W ~ T 1W _^
þF 0 (26)
g
~ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ BWS(^
e_ ¼ Ae þ B0 W ~ x, d^ , s^ )  
~d T 1 d_^ þ Fd  0 (27)
^ 0^ d~ þ BWS
þ BWS ^ s0^ s~ þ n (22) gd
d
 
T 1 _
where W ~ ¼ W ^  W  and n ¼ BW  S~ þ B0 W0 S~ 0  d þ s~ s^ þ Fs  0 (28)
gs
~ S ^ d~ þ BW
(BW 0 ~ Ss0^ s~ þ BW  O()).
d
Proof: See the Appendix.
Lemma 1: If the following parameter-updating laws (23) – Theorem 2: Consider the nonlinear fault system (17), state
(25) are adopted, then n is bounded in the set Ad observer (18) and error equation (22), suppose that there
8 exists a set Ad large enough to satisfy Assumptions 1 – 3.
>
< ^ k2  b)tr(FT W
(kW ^) ^ k2 . b and If parameter-updating laws (7) and (23) – (25) are
_^ g F þ g ^ , kW
W
W ¼ kW^k 2 tr(FT W^ ),0 adopted, and B0 , B, L0 , L satisfy the conditions
>
:
gF, other PB0 ¼ C T L0 , PB ¼ C T L, then e is uniformly ultimately
bounded, that is e [ L1 , where P is the same one as in
(23) Theorem 1.
8
>
< (kd^ k2  bd )FTd d^ ^ kd^ k2 . bd and
_
d^ ¼
gd Fd þ gd d, Proof: The Lyapunov function can be chosen as
> kd^ k2 FTd d^ , 0
:
g d F d , other 1 1
V ¼ eT Pe þ tr(W ~ 0 ) þ 1 tr(W
~ T0 W ~ TW
~)
(24) 2 2g0 2g
8 1 ~T ~ 1 T
< gs Fsi (1 þ s^ i  ai ), s^ i , ai and Fsi , 0 þ d dþ s̃ s̃ (29)
s_^ i ¼ gs Fsi (1  s^ i þ bi ), s^ i . bi and Fsi . 0 2gd 2gs
: gs Fsi , other
Matrix Q is the same one as in Theorem 1.
(25)
_^ _~
~_ ¼ W
Applying PB0 ¼ C T L0 , PB ¼ C T L and W , W0 ¼
where F ¼ LT ey S T (^x, d^ , s^ ) [ Rnq , Fd ¼ Sd0^ T W
^ T LT ey [ _^
W 0 , we have
k0 T
R , Fs ¼ (ey LW ^ Ss^ ) [ R , L [ R , and b, bd , ai , bi ,
0 T q pn

g, gd , gs are to be designed parameters. 1

V_ ¼  eT Qe þ eyT LW ~ S(^x, d^ , s^ )
2
Proof: See the Appendix. ^ Sd0 0 d~ þ eyT LW
þ eyT LW ^ Ss0^ s~ þ eT Pn

Remark 2: From previous analysis, we have the following 1 _^

~ TW 1 T_ 1
þ tr(W ) þ d~ d^ þ s~ T s_^
comments: g gd gs
  
1 ~ T Fþ1W _^
1. Because the input of the fault approximator is the state ¼  eT Qe þ tr (W
2 g
estimation x^ , only when x^ converges to the state x, the    
accuracy for fault estimation can be guaranteed. Therefore ~ T 1 _^ 1 _
þ d Fd þ d þ s~ Fs þ s^ þ eT Pn
T
(30)
only the precondition that the fault does not occur before gd gs
the state estimates have converged should be imposed, can
the diagnosis scheme be effective. From Lemma 2, we obtain

2. The FD scheme in this paper is valid for a degraded fault 1

V_   eT Qe þ eT Pn (31)
system not for an unstable fault system. In other words, the 2

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Using Theorem 1, V_  0 if kek  (2l2 =l1 )knk. Therefore 6 Simulation examples

e [ L1 , d~ [ L1 and s̃ [ L1 . The uniform ultimate
boundness of all signals is guaranteed. A To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed FD scheme, we
investigate the following two examples.
Example 1: A nonlinear system is given by
Corollary: Assume that the rank of matrix C in system (1) is n.
If the state observer with the fault in (18) can be redesigned as x_ ¼ f1 (x, u) þ b(t  T )j(x)
y ¼ Cx C ¼ [ 1 1 ]
x_^ ¼ A1 x^ þ B0 W
^ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ BW
^ S(^x, d^ , ŝ )
þ G(y  y^ ) þ v (32) where f1 (x, u), j(x) are unknown.

The following choice of f1 (x, u), j(x) is only for simulation

Then, e [ L2 , that is limt!1 x^ (t) ¼ x(t).
purpose not for design purpose:
where v ¼ v0 sign(eyT LB1 )T , v0 . 0 is designed to  
^ 0, 11x1 þ 0:1x1 sin x2 þ u
cancel error signal n. The parameter-updating laws of W f1 (x) ¼
W^ , d^ , ŝ are the same definitions as in Theorem 2. 2x2 þ x21
" #
x2 cos2 (x1 )
j(x) ¼ and u ¼ sin 0:5t
Proof: It is can be seen that the error e satisfies the following 0
equation
 
12 8
~ 0 S0 (^x, u) þ BW
~ S(^x, d^ , ŝ ) Choosing A1 ¼ , then f (x) ¼
e_ ¼ Ae þ B0 W 5 5
   
^ S 0^ d~ þ BW
^ Sŝ0 s̃ þ n þ v x1  8x2 þ 0:1x1 sin x2 þ u 20 0
þ BW (33) . Set A¼
d 5x2 þ x21  7x1 0 10
 
8
The Lyapunov function is the same as in Theorem 2. Since from A ¼ A1  GC, we get G¼ . Set Q ¼
5
the rank of matrix C in system (1) is n, we can choose  
12 1
matrix L such that matrix B is full rank, that is , L0 ¼ [4 2:5], L ¼ [6 5], we get P ¼
1 20
B ¼ P 1 (C T L), then    
0:3 0:0333 13:8284 8:6428
, B0 ¼ and
1 0:0333 1 4:4605 2:7878
 
V_ ¼  eT Qe þ eyT LB1 n þ eyT LB1 v 20:7427 17:2856
2 B¼ .
6:6907 5:5756
1
  eT Qe þ keyT LB1 k  knk
2 Initial centre and width of the basis function are
 v0 (eyT LB1 )sign[(eyT LB1 )]T (34) dij [ [0:4, 0:4] si [ [0:4, 0:6], i ¼ 1; . . . ; k, j ¼ 1, 2,
W^ (0) ¼ 0. The other values are b ¼ 2, bd ¼ 0:5,
It can be proved that for 8x [ Rn , kxk  xT sign(x), we can ai ¼ 0:2, bi ¼ 0:8, g ¼ g0 ¼ 0:2. gd ¼ ge ¼ 0:1, e0 ¼ 0:01.
get
The results in Fig. 1 show the states response of the nonlinear
system without fault, the solid lines are the system states, the
1
V_   eT Qe þ (eyT LB1 )sign[(eyT LB1 )]T  knk dotted lines are estimated states, and the neuron number of
2
the two neural networks is identical, that is, k ¼ q ¼ 10. It can
 v0 (eyT LB1 )sign[(eyT LB1 )]T be seen that the estimated states converge to the system states
accordingly. Fig. 2 shows the states estimation errors and the
1
¼  eT Qe þ (eyT LB1 )sign[(eyT LB1 )]T (knk  v0 ) estimated fault when the fault occurs at T ¼ 6 s. It can be seen
2 that the output of the fault neural network remains zero prior
(35) to the fault, and the fault approximator starts to work after the
fault being detected. Thus the FD scheme is able not only to
If v0 is chosen to satisfy v0 . knk, then detect a fault but also provides a model of fault. When a noise
N (0, 0.01) acts on the system, the simulation result is given in
1 Fig. 3, in which an unexpected fault estimation error is
V_   lq kek2 (36)
2 encountered. When the node numbers of neural networks
decrease to 7, that is k ¼ q ¼ 7, Fig. 4 shows the simulation
lq is minimum eignvalue of matrix Q. results, in which a more considerable fault estimation error is
caused. Therefore the trade-off between the node numbers
Therefore we have limt!1 e(t) ¼ 0, limt!1 x^ (t) ¼ x(t).A and the fault estimation accuracy should be made when neural

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Figure 1 States and estimation states without fault
Figure 2 States estimation errors and estimated fault
network is used as a fault approximator. When the fault model
is the function of time, that is j(t) ¼ 0.1, (t  6 s), the input
of the fault neural networks is also x̂, the learning capability of
the FD architecture is also illustrated in Fig. 5. This figure
shows that the neural network output provides a good
approximation of the fault function. Fig. 6 gives a result with
the fault function j(t) ¼ 0.1sin(0.5t), (t  15 s). Hence, we
Figure 3 States estimation errors and estimated fault with noise N(0, 0.01)
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conclude from Figs. 5 and 6 that even though the fault is
modelled as an external additive input (function of time), it
can also be approximated by neural network. It is because that
the input of the neural network is the implicit function of time.
We also compare the FD results in Fig. 2 with the condition
where the system full state variables can be measurable, since
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Figure 4 States estimation errors and estimated fault with neural networks nodes (k ¼ 7)

Figure 5 Simulation results with fault function j(t) ¼ 0.1

there are nearly no difference between these two situations, the the estimation accuracy is mainly related to the number of
later is neglected. neurons of networks and g, g0 , gd , gs .

Remark 3: The simulation studies show that the system Example 2: This is a multiple faults example. The
stability is related to Matrix B, B0 to a great extent, whereas dynamical model of a planar, two-link, articulated robotic

Figure 6 Simulation results with fault function j(t) ¼ 0.1 sin 0.5t

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manipulator [17] is nonlinear with strong coupling between Let the reference inputs of the robotic manipulator are
the two degrees of freedom. The equations of motion in yg ¼ [yg1 yg2 ]T .
terms of the generalised coordinates q1 and q2 , representing
the angular positions of joints 1 and 2 and applied torques The controller is designed as [18]
t1 and t2 at these joints is given by  
t1
       u¼
q€ 1 h_q2 h(_q 1 þ q_ 2 ) q_ 1 t1 t2
¼ M 1 þ M 1    
q€ 2 h_q1 0 q_ 2 t2 x4 h(^x3 þ x^ 4 ) x^ 3
1 h^
¼ M K e^ þ y€ r þ M
þ w(q1 , q_ 1 , q2 , q_ 2 ) þ b(t  T )j(q1 , q_ 1 , q2 , q_ 2 ) h^x3 0 x^ 4

y ¼ [ y1 y2 ]T ¼ [q1 q2 ]T (37) where e^ ¼ [x1  yr1 x2  yr2 x^ 3  y_ r1 x^ 4  y_ r2 ]T .

where j(q1 , q_ 1 , q2 , q_ 2 ) [ R2 is an unknown fault function We consider a fault that occurs because of a tangle of
vector. w(q1 , q_ 1 , q2 , q_ 2 ) [ R2 is a vector containing the complex factors. This fault is assumed to manifest itself as
unknown static and dynamic terms. a nonlinear change (in the robotic system dynamics)
described by
Let x ¼ [x1 x2 x3 x4 ]T ¼ [q1 q2 q_ 1 q_ 2 ]T , u¼ 2 3
[ t1 t2 ] T 0
6 5x1 sin x3  0:4 sin x3 7
j(x) ¼ 6
4
7
5
Equation 37 can be rewritten as 0
x1 sin (0:5x4 ) þ x4
    
x_ 3 f11 (x) f12 (x) x3
¼ þ w(x) The numerical values used for simulation purposes are
x_ 4 f21 (x) f22 (x) x4
  m1 ¼ 1, l1 ¼ 1, me ¼ 2, de ¼ 308, I1 ¼ 0:12, lc1 ¼ 0:5, Ie ¼
g11 (x) g12 (x) 0:25, lce ¼ 0:6. The reference inputs are yg1 ¼ cos t, yg2 ¼
þ u þ b(t  T )j(x) (38)
g21 (x) g22 (x) sin t and the initial position is q(0) ¼ [0:5 0:5]T , the
initial estimate states are
 e^(0) ¼0, and
or 13 0 4 0 12 0
K ¼ , A¼ , G¼
0 24 0 10 0 8
       
x_ 3 4 0 8 0 0:333 0
¼ f (x) þ g(x)u þ b(t  T )j(x) (39) , Q¼ , P¼ , B0 ¼
x_ 4 5 12 0 10 0 0:625
     
   2 5 2:5 11 0:667 1:667
, B¼ , L0 ¼ ,
T 1 0 x1 3 3:8 4 6 1:875 2:375
y ¼ [ y1 y2 ] ¼  
0 1 x2 0:7667 2
L¼ .
6:25 9:375
From (37), it is can be seen that g(x) [ R22 are known,
f (x), j(x) are unknown which can be approximated by two Initial centre and width of the basis function
neural networks proposed in this paper. Besides, the states are dij [ [1:5, 1:5], s1 [ [0:4, 0:6], i ¼ 1; . . . ; k, j ¼
x1 , x2 are measurable, the states x3 , x4 are immeasurable. 1, 2, W^ (0) ¼ 0, k ¼ q ¼ 15. The other values are b ¼ 1:5,

Figure 7 Outputs and reference inputs for a robotic manipulator

1074 IET Control Theory Appl., 2008, Vol. 2, No. 12, pp. 1066 – 1076
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Figure 8 Faults and estimated faults for a robotic manipulator
a The fault j1(x) and its estimation
b The fault j2(x) and its estimation
bd ¼ 0:5, ai ¼ 0:6, bi ¼ 1, g ¼ g0 ¼ 0:1, gd ¼ gs ; ¼
0:2, e0 ¼ 0:05.
The simulation results are in Fig. 7, it can be seen that the
system outputs can track the reference inputs prior to the
occurrence of the faults, but the faults cause a considerable
tracking error after t . 6 s. Fig. 8 shows the system faults
and the estimated faults. Therefore the FD scheme
proposed is effective for a practical example.
Remark 4: The fault models provided by the neural
network can be used for further identifying the failure mode.
Remark 5: From the simulation results in the two examples,
it can be seen that the neural network can provide a good
approximation of the fault function. But when fault model
is a step function, the output of fault approximator has a
large dynamic error in a short time. So, the dynamic time
of fault estimate should also be considered in the practical
system, in order to avoid false fault detection.
7 Conclusion
In this paper, the FD scheme based on neural networks is
presented for a class of unknown nonlinear systems with
unmeasured states. Two neural networks are used to
approximate nonlinear dynamics and nonlinear fault
function which can be modelled as a function of system
states and input or a function of time. A nonlinear state
observer is designed to estimate the system states. The
main feature of the proposed scheme is that it needs
neither a system model being exactly known nor system
states being fully measurable, because for a physical system,
it is difficult to measure all its states. Further research work
includes extension of the proposed approach to networked
control systems with unknown nonlinear plants.
IET Control Theory Appl., 2008, Vol. 2, No. 12, pp. 1066 – 1076
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[9] ALEXANDER B. , POLYCARPOU M.M.: ‘Automated fault 9 Appendix

diagnosis in nonlinear multivariable systems using a
Proof of Lemma 1: The parameter-updating laws (23) –
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^ s^ i to some
(25) constraint the parameter estimates W
11, (1), pp. 91– 101
compacts, convex regions VW^ , Vd^ , Vs^ , respectively; that
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from the representation
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(4), pp. 576– 593
n ¼ BW  S~ þ B0 W0 S~ 0  d þ (BW
~ S 0^ d~ þ BW
d
~ Ss0^ s̃
[11] VEMURI A.T., POLYCARPOU M.M.: ‘Robust nonlinear fault þ BW  O())
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68, (2), pp. 343– 360 the boundness of n is obvious. A

[12] SESHAGIRI S.S., KHALIL H.K.: ‘Output feedback control of Proof of Lemma 2:
nonlinear systems using RBF neural networks’, IEEE Trans.
Neural Netw., 2000, 11, (1), pp. 69– 79 " #
   ^ 2 T ^
~ T 1 _^ ~ (kW k  b)tr(F W ) W
T
^
[13] HOVAKIMYAN N., CALISE A.J., KIM N.: ‘Adaptive output feedback tr W W þF ¼ tr W
g kW^ k2
control of multi-input multi-output systems using neural
networks’, Int. J. Control, 2004, 77, (15), pp. 1318 – 1329 ^ k2  b)tr(FT W
(kW ^)
¼ ~ TW
tr(W ^)
kW^k 2
[14] SLOTINE J.-J.E., LI W.: ‘Applied nonlinear control’ (Prentice
Hall, 1991)
^ k2 . b, kW
When kW ^ k . kW  k,
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that is
American Control Conf. [C]. Chicago, IL, USA, NJ, IEEE
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^ ) ¼ 1 kW
~ TW
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2 2 2
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T
i. when kW^ k2 . b and ^ ) , 0,
tr(FT W ~ (1=g)
tr[W
[17] XU H., IOANNOU P.A.: ‘Robust adaptive control for a class of _^
W þ F)]  0,
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^ ) , 0 are
T
~ (1=g)W_
^ þ F)] ¼ 0.
not satisfied, tr[W
[18] ZHANG S., HU S.: ‘Output feedback tracking control for a
class of MIMO nonlinear minimum phase systems based The proofs of inequalities (27) and (28) are similar
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Control, 2008, 4, (4), pp. 803– 812

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