Model-based fault injection experiments for the safety analysis of exoskeleton system

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Contributors

Abstract

Model-based fault injection methods are widely used for the evaluation of fault tolerance in safety-critical control systems. In this paper, we introduce a new model-based fault injection method implemented as a highly-customizable Simulink block called FIBlock. It supports the injection of typical faults of essential heterogeneous components of Cyber-Physical Systems, such as sensors, computing hardware, and network. The FIBlock GUI allows the user to select a fault type and configure multiple parameters to tune error magnitude, fault activation time, and fault exposure duration. Additional trigger inputs and outputs of the block enable the modeling of conditional faults. Furthermore, two or more FIBlocks connected with these trigger signals can model chained errors. The proposed fault injection method is demonstrated with a lower-limb EXO-LEGS exoskeleton, an assistive device for the elderly in everyday life. The EXO-LEGS model-based dynamic control is realized in the Simulink environment and allows easy integration of the aforementioned FIBlocks. Exoskeletons, in general, being a complex CPS with multiple sensors and actuators, are prone to hardware and software faults. In the case study, three types of faults were investigated: 1) sensor freeze, 2) stuck-at-0, 3) bit-flip. The fault injection experiments helped to determine faults that have the most significant effects on the overall system reliability and identify the fine line for the critical fault duration after that the controller could no longer mitigate faults.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 30th European Safety and Reliability Conference and the 15th Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management Conference
EditorsPiero Baraldi, Francesco Di Maio, Enrico Zio
PublisherResearch Publishing, Singapore
Pages1338-1345
Number of pages8
ISBN (electronic)9789811485930
Publication statusPublished - 2020
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

Title30th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2020 and 15th Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management Conference, PSAM15 2020
Duration1 - 5 November 2020
CityVenice
CountryItaly

External IDs

Scopus 85110311320

Keywords

Keywords

  • Chained errors, Cyber-physical system, Exoskeleton systems, Fault injection, Fault-tolerance, Model-based methods, Safety, Simulink