Redundant Control Unit Latency Reduction via Pre-Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing redundancy schemes in automation systems introduce delays in the control process due to the need to verify the correctness of outputs before forwarding them to physical units, which can lead to additional latency and potential safety issues in critical systems.
Innovation Solution
A method where a selected controlling output from multiple redundant control units is applied to a physical unit before or during a correctness check, allowing for minimal delay and ensuring high availability by switching to another unit if the primary fails, thereby minimizing propagation delay and maintaining system performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If redundancy schemes verify correctness of outputs before forwarding to physical units, then reliability is improved, but response time deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-validating redundant control units before failure occurs. The validation mechanism checks the correctness of controlling outputs in advance, so that when a failure happens, a pre-validated backup unit can immediately take over without requiring verification delay, thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and response time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements beforehand cushioning by maintaining pre-validated standby control units that are ready to take over immediately upon failure. This cushioning mechanism ensures that the system has already prepared correct controlling outputs in advance, eliminating the need for time-consuming verification during critical failure scenarios.
2Measurement precision
If voting is performed on all outputs to ensure correctness, then error detection is improved, but productivity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the voting mechanism from the critical time path by performing validation on standby units separately from the primary control cycle. Only the necessary validation for takeover readiness is performed, rather than exhaustive voting on all outputs, thus maintaining error detection capability while improving control cycle speed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies partial validation action by checking only the essential correctness criteria for standby control units rather than performing complete voting on all output parameters. This partial action is sufficient to ensure reliability while avoiding the productivity loss that would result from exhaustive verification of every output.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for controlling a physical unit, involving: cyclically generating a plurality of controlling outputs, wherein the plurality of controlling outputs is provided in a redundant manner; applying a selected one of the controlling outputs to the physical unit; checking if at least the selected controlling output is correct; and selecting one of the control units whose controlling output was checked as correct to apply its controlling output to the physical unit (2) in a subsequent cycle, wherein the applying the selected one of the controlling outputs to the physical unit is performed before or during the step of checking.