Application of observers to monitoring, failure detection and fault diagnosis in aircraft flight control

In this paper the application of observers to monitoring, failure detection and fault diagnosis in aircraft flight control systems is discussed in detail. New results concerning the design of parameter-insensitive observers are presented. The feasibility of real-time implementation of a monitoring and failure detection and diagnosis scheme on multiple transputers is investigated and it is shown that the real-time performance specifications can be met and that the method could be used in practice.