Fault Tolerant Intelligent Controller for Space Station Subsystems

Apriori knowledge of failure modes of a system is an indispensable information for design of robust decentralized hierarchical control schemes. In particular inclusion of system faults as part of the process under control provides greater flexibility for self diagnosis and maintenance of real-time systems. By assigning discrete states to the process under control, an "artificial consciousness" can be created within the controller which allows the controller to exercise selective actions for each given discrete state. This concept has been implemented to control the utility systems of the Space Station Laboratory Simulator.