Biologically inspired fault-tolerant architectures for real-time control applications

Real-time control applications involve the interaction of multiple componen ts. As systems become more complex their reliability tends to decrease, hen ce, fault tolerance must be incorporated to keep reliability within specifi ed levels. A novel reconfiguration mechanism inspired by mechanisms that ta ke place during the embryonic development of living beings is proposed in t his paper. It is illustrated using an example that the rapid low-level faul t-recovery characteristic of the embryonic system makes it a promising appr oach for real-time control applications. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.