Design for Resilience: How to Design and Operate Complex Engineering Systems

Professor George Vachtsevanos
Professor Emeritus
Georgia Institute of Technology
USA
E-mail: gjv@ece.gatech.edu
 

Abstract: This plenary talk addresses a timely and significant problem in the design and operation of complex engineering systems. Complex systems are subjected to severe disturbances (failure modes, environmental effects, etc.) that endanger their operational integrity. Complexity and uncertainty concerns contribute to the occurrence of faults and failure mechanisms that may result in catastrophic events. Design for resilience is a new paradigm in systems theory intended to enable such complex systems to withstand large-grain disturbances. We will introduce a design framework that begins with a thorough understanding of the system at hand, modeling and simulation tools and methods to represent with high fidelity the dynamic behaviors of complex systems. Moreover, we suggest a design architecture that builds upon concepts from the biological species, i.e. immunity and self-healing. For improved resilience we exploit such tools as reconfigurable control, self-organization and robust design.
The systematic and holistic design for resilience framework is illustrated via an example from the cyber physical system domain.

Short biography: Dr. George Vachtsevanos is currently serving as Professor Emeritus at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He served as Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology from 1984 until September, 2007. Dr Vachtsevanos directs at Georgia Tech the Intelligent Control Systems laboratory where faculty and students began research in diagnostics in 1985 with a series of projects in collaboration with Boeing Aerospace Company funded by NASA and aimed at the development of fuzzy logic based algorithms for fault diagnosis and control of major space station subsystems. His work in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles dates back to 1994 with major projects funded by the U.S. Army and DARPA. He has served as the Co-PI for DARPA�s Software Enabled Control program over the past six years and directed the development and flight testing of novel fault-tolerant control algorithms for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. He has represented Georgia Tech at DARPA�s HURT program where multiple UAVs performed surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking missions in an urban environment. Under AFOSR sponsorship, the Impact/Georgia Team is developing a biologically-inspired micro aerial vehicle. His research work has been supported over the years by ONR, NSWC, the MURI Integrated Diagnostic program at Georgia Tech, the U,S. Army�s Advanced Diagnostic program, General Dynamics, General Motors Corporation, the Academic Consortium for Aging Aircraft program, the U.S. Air Force Space Command, Bell Helicopter, Fairchild Controls, among others. He has published over 300 technical papers and is the recipient of the 2002-2003 Georgia Tech School of ECE Distinguished Professor Award and the 2003-2004 Georgia Institute of Technology Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award. He is the lead author of a book on Intelligent Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis for Engineering Systems published by Wiley in 2006..