A distributed detection scheme for process faults and sensor faults in a class of interconnected nonlinear uncertain systems

This paper investigates the problem of distributed fault detection in a class of interconnected nonlinear uncertain systems. It significantly extends previous results by considering more general nonlinear systems. Under certain assumptions, a distributed fault detection method is developed, and adaptive thresholds for fault detection is derived, ensuring robustness with respect to interconnections among subsystems and modeling uncertainty. Moreover, the fault detectability conditions are rigorously investigated, characterizing the class of detectable process faults and sensor faults in each subsystem. Additionally, a simulation example is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed distributed fault detection method.