IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO.

4, JULY 2015

1465

Observer-Based Decentralized Fault Detection

and Isolation Strategy for Networked
Multirobot Systems
Filippo Arrichiello, Alessandro Marino, and Francesco Pierri

Abstract In this paper, we present a distributed fault

detection and isolation (FDI) strategy for a team of networked
robots that builds on a distributed controllerobserver schema.
Remarkably different from other works in literature, the proposed FDI approach makes each robot of the team able to detect
and isolate faults occurring on other robots, even if they are
not direct neighbors. By means of a local observer, each robot
can estimate the overall state of the team and it can use such an
estimate to compute its local control input to achieve global tasks.
The same information used by the local observers is also used
to compute residual vectors, whose aim is to allow the detection
and the isolation of actuator faults occurring on any robot of the
team. Adaptive thresholds are derived based on the dynamics
of the residual vectors by considering the presence of nonzero
initial observer estimation errors, and noise terms affecting state
measurement and model dynamics. The approach is validated
via both numerical simulations and experiments involving four
Khepera III mobile robots.
Index Terms Distributed multirobot systems, fault detection
and isolation (FDI), networked robots.

I. I NTRODUCTION

ETWORKED robots have been object of widespread

research in the latest years [18]. This is motivated by
their wide application domain, as well as by their flexibility,
potential robustness to faults, and capacity to accomplish complex tasks alternatively impossible for a single unit. Despite
their clear advantages, networked robots pose challenging
problems due to the interaction among control, communication, and perception.
When dealing with the control of networked robots,
a decentralized control strategy is a desirable feature
and, sometimes, the only one possible; indeed, in most
challenging applications, a central control unit represents a
weak point of the system and the communication with all

Manuscript received July 16, 2014; accepted November 14, 2014. Date
of publication January 8, 2015; date of current version June 12, 2015.
Manuscript received in final form November 24, 2014. This work was
supported by the Italian Government within the Fund for Investment in
Basic ResearchFuturo in Ricerca 2008 through the NECTAR Project under
Grant RBFR08QWUV. Recommended by Associate Editor X. Zhang.
F. Arrichiello is with the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio,
Cassino 03043, Italy (e-mail: f.arrichiello@unicas.it).
A. Marino is with the University of Salerno, Salerno 84084, Italy (e-mail:
almarino@unisa.it).
F. Pierri is with the University of Basilicata, Potenza 85100, Italy (e-mail:
francesco.pierri@unibas.it).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TCST.2014.2377175

the robots could be impossible in the case of vehicles with

short-communication-range capabilities. Thus, most recent
research in this field focuses on the development of
decentralized control strategies, where each robot computes
its own motion control only based on local information and
on information from a subset of its teammates, usually named
neighbors [7]. Graph theoretical methods that allow the system
to extract its analytical properties on the basis of the connectivity properties of the communication network formed by the
agents are often used for the purpose [19]. In this context, one
of the most popular problems is the consensus, which consists
in reaching an agreement regarding a specific variable, exogenous or depending on the state of the single robots, without
using all-to-all communication. Recent results in this field are
summarized in [25]. As examples, consensus algorithms are
investigated with an emphasis on robustness, time-delays, and
performance bounds in [22] and [26]. Differently from the
consensus, the problem of distributed control of multirobot
systems is aimed at achieving a global task (e.g., controlling
the geometrical centroid and formation of the team) using only
local information and interactions. A wide overview on such
a problem can be found in [7] and [19]. Belta and Kumar [6]
propose a partially decentralized algorithm to control the
network centroid, variance, and orientation of the system.
In [12] and [32], the designed approach builds on [29] and
uses a distributed estimator of the actual collective behavior
(global task) expressed in terms of formation statistics
to make it reach a desired constant value. Decentralized
estimation and control have been also investigated in [28] in
the framework of linear-state feedback control.
The intrinsic redundancy of networked robots may allow for
accomplishing the assigned mission also in the case of failure
of one or more teammates. Nevertheless, when dealing with
distributed control of multirobot systems aimed at achieving
a global task, this feature, without the explicit adoption of
a suitable fault detection and isolation (FDI) schema, is the
only potential and the fault of one robot may jeopardize the
proper execution of the task. Indeed, almost all the approaches
presented in the literature do not exploit the redundancy of
such systems, as no fault handling strategy is designed.
Several FDI approaches have been presented in the last
decades for single-unit systems; the interested reader may
consult the recent survey in [15] and the references therein
to get a wide overview on the main approaches. However,
very few approaches have been designed for decentralized

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO. 4, JULY 2015

multirobot systems and mainly make use of a central unit.

A centralized FDI scheme for networked systems is presented
in [31], where each subsystem transmits information about
actuators and sensors to a centralized fault detection station
that detects and isolates faults over the network. In [20], the
diagnosis problem is formulated in terms of an isolability
index for a given family of fault signatures, and both a
centralized and decentralized architectures are developed and
compared; such approach has been extended in [21] to the
case of large environmental disturbances.
In the last years, some researchers focused their attention on
the fault diagnosis of distributed systems, proposing different
decentralized approaches. Bank of adaptive observers, using
only measurements and information from neighboring subsystems, are used in [11], [33], and [34] to detect and isolate
faults in interconnected subsystems; for each node in the large
scale system, a fault detection estimator is designed using
local measurements and information communicated from
interconnected subsystems. The concept of overlapping system
is exploited in [30], where the overall system is assumed
to be linear, with zero-mean stochastic processes as input
and measurement noise, and potentially affected by additive
process faults; local observers are designed to detect faults
on nonoverlapping parts of the system, and a consensuslike strategy is adopted for FDI of the overlapping parts.
In [24], an observer-based schema, where each subsystem
exchanges state information with all the other subsystems, is
proposed for the detection of faults affecting both the local
dynamics and the interconnected subsystems. Unknown input
observers are proposed in [27] for the FDI of networks of
interconnected systems controlled with a decentralized control
law. Feng et al. [10] deal with the FDI problem for networked
systems in case of communication failures in terms of time
delays, random packet losses, and nonlinear perturbations.
A distributed fault detection filtering approach for a class of
nonlinear systems is presented in [16], where each subsystem
is monitored by a local fault detection scheme; each node
requires the input and output measurements of the subsystem
that it is monitoring, as well as the measurements of all the
interconnected subsystems that are influencing that subsystem.
Reference [8] presents a FDI approach for distributed and heterogeneous networked systems, where each agent can detect
and isolate not only its own faults but also the faults of its
nearest neighbors.
In the above cited papers, a necessary condition for the
distributed detection of the fault of a robot by a healthy one is
that the two robots are either able to directly communicate
or sense each other. Obviously, this is a limitation in the
case the robots motion control law depends on the state of
all the robots in the team and not only on the state of its
direct neighbors, as the formation control problem considered
in this paper. Thus, here we want to develop a distributed FDI
algorithm for networked robots, which allows each robot of
the team to detect faults occurring on any other robot, even
if not directly connected; this can be used in the case where
the control input of each robot depends on the overall state
of the system or on an estimate of it. Antonelli et al. [2], [3]
presented a distributed strategy to control the centroid and the

relative formation of a team of robots based on the use of local

observers that allow each robot to estimate the collective state
of the system using only information from the robot itself and
from its direct neighbors. Building on the results presented in
the above cited papers, here we introduce a FDI strategy that,
by a proper modification of the state-observer, allows each
robot to detect additive input faults affecting any robot of the
team.
The FDI schema proposed in this paper is based on the
following steps.
1) Each robot runs a local observer, a modification of
what is presented in [2] and [3], that uses only local
information and a suitable vector received from neighbor
robots to estimate the overall system state (i.e., the
positions of all the robots).
2) Each robot computes a motion control law that uses
a locally available estimate of the overall system state
to track desired time-varying trajectories of global task
functions (team centroid and formation in our case).
3) Using the same information (local and received from
neighbors) gained for the observercontroller schema,
each robot computes residual vectors relative to the
teammates to monitor their healthy state.
4) The residual dynamics are analytically investigated both
in the presence and in the absence of faults. Thus,
to detect and isolate faults of any other robot in the
team, the residual vectors are compared with adaptive
thresholds designed on the basis of residual dynamics,
the presence of likely nonzero initial observer estimation
errors, measurement noise, and model uncertainties.
A preliminary version of this paper has been presented
in [5]. Here, we include further analytical details; we consider
the case of noisy state measurements and model uncertainties
that require a new derivation of the adaptive thresholds;
we improve the simulative validation considering the case
of occurrence of multiple faults in the presence of noisy
measurement and model uncertainties; finally, we provide the
experimental results with a team of networked robots.
This paper is organized as follows. Section II introduces the
system modeling and the decentralized observercontroller
scheme. Section III presents the fault detection schema
designed on the basis of the developed state observer.
Sections IV and V, respectively, present the results of
numerical simulations and experimental validation involving
four Khepera III robots required to track desired time-varying
centroid and formation reference trajectories. Finally,
in Section VI, we derive the conclusion and discuss future
works.
II. D ECENTRALIZED O BSERVER C ONTROLLER S CHEME
A. Robot Dynamics and Communication Modeling
Let us consider a system composed by N robots, where
the i th robots state is denoted by x i IRn . Each robot is
characterized by the following dynamics:
x i = ui + i + i (t, x i )

(1)

ARRICHIELLO et al.: OBSERVER-BASED DECENTRALIZED FDI STRATEGY

where ui IRn is the input vector, i IRn is an additive fault

term that is zero in healthy conditions, and (t, x i ) IRn is
an uncertainty term supposed to be bounded
 i (t, x i ) t i = 1, 2, . . . , N.

(2)

The collective state is given by x = [x T1 , . . . , x TN ]T IR Nn

and the collective dynamics is, then, expressed as
x = u + +

(3)

u = [uT1 , . . . , uTN ]T IR Nn is the collective input

= [ T1 , . . . , TN ]T IR Nn is the collective fault
and = [ T1 , . . . , TN ]T IR Nn is the collective

where
vector,
vector,
dynamic uncertainty term.
It is supposed that each robot has access to a noisy
measure x i,m of its own state
x i,m = x i + i

(4)

where i
is the additive noise, assumed to be norm
bounded by a positive scalar
IRn

 i 

i = 1, 2, . . . , N.

(5)

The collective noisy measure of the system state is

xm = x +

(6)

where = [T1 , . . . , TN ]T IR Nn is the collective noise vector.

The information exchange among the robots is modeled
referring to graph theory approaches [9], [13], [23]; thus,
a network of robots is described by a graph G(E, V) characterized by its topology, i.e., the set V of the indexes labeling
the N vertices (nodes), the set of edges (arcs) E = V V, and
the (N N) adjacency matrix

1 if ( j, i ) E
A = {ai j } : aii = 0, ai j =
0 otherwise
that is, ai j = 1 if there exists an arc from vertex j to
vertex i . It is assumed that the i th robot receives information
only from its neighbors Ni = { j V : ( j, i ) E}, and it
does not know the topology of the overall communication
graph. The cardinality
of Ni is the in-degree of node i , i.e.,

di = |Ni | = Nj=1 ai j . Moreover, the cardinality of the set of
nodes receiving information 
from node i represents the outN
aki .
degree of node i , i.e., Di = k=1
If all the communication links among the robots
are bidirectional, the graph is called undirected
(i.e., (i, j ) E ( j, i ) E) and the adjacency matrix is
symmetric; otherwise, the graph is called directed. A directed
graph is called strongly connected if any two distinct nodes of
the graph can be connected via a directed path, i.e., a path that
follows the direction of the edges of the graph. An undirected
graph is called connected if there is an undirected path
between every pair of distinct nodes. A node of a directed
graph is balanced if its in-degree and its out-degree are equal;
a directed graph is called balanced if each node of the graph
is balanced (i.e., di = Di , i ). Any undirected graph is
balanced.
Moreover, the graph topology can be assumed either fixed
or switching in time (e.g., communication links may appear
or disappear over the time).

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The communication topology can also be characterized by

the (N N) Laplacian matrix defined as
L = {li j } : lii =

N


ai j , li j = ai j , i = j.

j =1, j  =i

The Laplacian exhibits at least a zero eigenvalue having as

the corresponding right eigenvector the N 1 vector of all
ones 1 N . Hence, rank(L) N 1 and L1 N = 0 N , where 0 N is
the (N 1) null vector. For a balanced directed graph (and,
thus, for an undirected graph), 1 N is also a left eigenvector
of L, i.e., 1TN L = 0TN . All the eigenvalues of matrix L
are such that their real part is equal to or greater than zero
[i.e., Re(i ) 0, i ]; moreover, if the graph is strongly
connected rank(L) = N 1; rank(L) < N 1 otherwise.
The N eigenvalues of L can be ordered such that
0 = 1 Re(2 ) Re( N )
and thus, Re(2 ) is greater than zero if and only if the
graph is strongly connected; for this reason, 2 is defined
as the algebraic connectivity of the graph. Finally, if the
graph is undirected, the Laplacian is symmetric and positive
semidefinite. Interested readers may found further details on
Laplacian matrix and its possible uses in the books [19], [25].
B. State Observer
Each robot runs an observer that uses only local information
and a suitable vector received from neighbor robots to estimate
the overall team state. Such observer is a modified version of
the one presented in [2] and it is used for both control purposes
and FDI strategy, without increasing the information exchange
burden.
Let  i be a (n Nn) selection matrix
 i = {O n

In


On}

ith node

that allows to extract the components of the i th robot

from a collective vector. Let define i as the (Nn Nn)
matrix i =  Ti  i .
The estimate of the collective state x is computed by the
i th robot using the observer





i
j
y i y + i ym i y + i u
(7)
x = ko
j Ni

t
where ko > 0 is a scalar gain; ym = x m t0 u( )d ,
t
and i y = ix t0 i u(,
i x )d , where t0 is the initial time
i
i
instant; and u = u(t,
i x ) is the estimate of the collective
input elaborated by the i th robot on the basis of its estimate
of the collective state i x , and of the control law detailed
in Section II-C. The i th input ui in (1) is extracted from i u
thanks to the selection matrix  i
ui =  i i u.

(8)

It is worth noticing that i y depends only on local information

available to robot i , and that each observer is updated using
only the estimates j y received from direct neighbors.

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Thus, j y IR Nn is the only information that is required to be

exchanged among neighbors.
The collective estimation dynamics is
x  = ko L  y + ko  y + ko   + u 

(9)

where L  = L I Nn , with denoting the Kronecker product

operator and
 = diag{[1 , . . . ,  N ]} IR N
x  = [1 x T , . . . , N x T ]T IR N

2n

y  = [1 yT , . . . , N yT ]T IR N

2n
2n

2n

y  = 1 N y y IR N
t
with y = x t0 u( )d .

2n

(10)

C. Control Objective and the Feedback Control Law

The control objective and the feedback control law considered in this paper are inherited from [2] and [3]; here,
we recall their essential concepts to make this paper selfcontained, while interested readers may want to directly refer
to the cited papers for further details.
The control objective is to make the team centroid and
the relative formation follows desired time-varying references.
To this aim, the two tasks are represented via the following
task functions
1) The centroid of the system
1 (x) =

N
1 
xi = J 1 x
N

where J 1 IRnNn is the Jacobian of the task.

2) The formation of the system, expressed as an assigned
set of relative displacement between the robots
2 (x) = [(x 2 x 1 )T , . . . , (x N x N1 )T ]T = J 2 x
(12)
where J 2 IR(N1)nNn is the Jacobian of the task
whose expression can be found in [3].
It is worth combining both the tasks in a single vector
IR Nn
  

1
J1
=
=
x = J x, = J x
(13)
2
J2
it can be easily shown that matrix J IR NnNn is not singular
and then invertible.
Each robot, using its collective estimate i x , computes an
estimate of the collective input via the feedback control law


i
u = i u(t,
i x ) = J d + kc i (i x )
(14)

i

(i x ) =

i
i

(i x )

(i x )


=

1,d
1
2,d i 2 (i x )
i

(i x )

where i,d is the desired value of the task variable i

(i = 1, 2) and J is the pseudoinverse of matrix J. The input
vector ui to robot i is extracted from (14) according to (8).

In the following, we prove that with the presented version

of observer (modified with respect to the one presented in [2]),
in the absence of faults, measurement noise and model uncertainty, x  = 1 N x x  exponentially converges to the origin.
To this aim, the exponential convergence to the origin of y
is first proven.
Theorem 2.1: In the presence of a strongly connected
directed communication graph (or connected undirected graph)
and in the absence of faults ( i = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , N ), measurement noise (i = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , N , and y = ym ) and
model uncertainty ( i = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , N ), y is globally
exponentially convergent to the origin with the update law
in (9) for any ko > 0. Furthermore, in the presence of bounded
measurement noise and model uncertainty, y is globally
uniformly ultimately bounded.
Proof: The proof comes from the fact that system in (9)
can be rearranged as
y = x  u  = ko L  y + ko  y + ko   . (15)
Then, in virtue of the last relationship in (10)
L  y = L  (1 N y y  ) = L  y + L  1 N y = L  y
(16)

(11)

i=1

where

= [ 1 (x)T 2 (x)T ]T = [ 1,d 1 (x)T , 2,d 2 (x)T ]T

D. Convergence Proof of the ObserverController Schema

2 nN 2 n

u  = [1 u T (t, 1 x ), . . . , N u T (t, N x )]T IR N

 = 1 N IR N

is the estimate of the task error

where the property

L  (1 N y) = (L I Nn )(1 N y) = (L1 N ) (I Nn y ) = 0

has been exploited. Hence, by defining L = L  +  ,
(15) becomes

y = ko L  y + ko   .

(17)

By noting that from (3), y = + , it holds

y = 1 N y y =  +  ko L  y ko   (18)
with  = 1 N and  = 1 N . In [2], it was proved

that matrix L is Hurwitz provided that the communication
graph is strongly connected. Thus, in the absence of faults
(  = 0), measurement noise ( = 0), and model uncertainty
(  = 0), (18) proves the theorem ko > 0.
In the presence of bounded measurement noise and model
uncertainty, the term ko   +  in (9) can be viewed as
a nonvanishing bounded perturbation whose upper bound is
given by

ko   +   ko  +    N (ko + N ). (19)

The exponential stability of the origin of the nominal
system ensures that the solutions of the perturbed
system are globally uniformly ultimately bounded
(see [17, Lemma 9.2, p. 347]).

ARRICHIELLO et al.: OBSERVER-BASED DECENTRALIZED FDI STRATEGY

Theorem 2.2: In the presence of a strongly connected

directed communication graph (or connected undirected graph)
and in the absence of faults ( i = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , N ), measurement noise (i.e., i = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , N ), and model
uncertainty ( i = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , N ), with the update law
in (9), the stacked vector of the collective state estimation
errors x  is exponentially convergent to the origin. Moreover,
in the presence of bounded measurement noise and model
uncertainty, x  is globally uniformly ultimately bounded.
Proof: See the Appendix.
Remark 2.1: In [3], it was proven that the exponential
stability of the observer leads also to the exponential stability
of the task errors l (l = 1, 2) with the control law in (14).
Thus, the proof relative to the convergence of l (l = 1, 2) is
omitted.

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It can be shown that it holds

yk = diag{ k ,  k , . . . ,  k } y =  k y .
By considering (18), the dynamics of y k is
y =   y = ko   L  y ko     +    +   
k
k
k
k
k
k

= ko L k yk ko k + 1 N k + 1 N k
(25)
where  k  = 1 N k ( k  = 1 N k ). Equation (25)
shows that yk is only affected by the fault on robot k ( k ) and

not by faults on other robots ( j with j = k). Since L k has all
its eigenvalues in the right half plane when the communication
graph is strongly connected (this can be proven analogously to

the case of L ), (25) is asymptotically stable and its solution,
starting from the time t = 0, is

j Ni

It is worth noting that the computation of the above quantity

does not require additional information exchange since it
makes use of the same terms used by the local state observer
in (7).
The vector ir can be seen as a stacked vector, i.e.,
ir = [ir T , ir T , . . . , ir T ]T IR Nn , where each component
1
2
N
ir IRn represents the residual computed by robot i relative
k
to robot k. As it will be explained in the following, the
vector i r k allows the robot i to monitor the healthy state of
robot k.
The following lemma represents the key point of the
designed FDI strategy.
Lemma 3.1: A fault occurring on the robot k at time t f > 0
= [0T , . . . , Tk , . . . , 0T ]T

(21)

affects only the residual components i r k ( i = 1, 2, . . . , N)

and not residual i r j (i = 1, 2, . . . , N and j = k).
Proof:
Based on (20), the stacked vector
2
r  = [1 r T , . . . , N r T ]T IR N n , i.e., the collective residual
vector, can be expressed as

r  = L y  +  

(22)

and from Theorem 2.1, it is straightforward to derive that

in the absence of faults, measurement noise, and model
uncertainty, such a term converges exponentially to zero, while
in the presence of bounded noise and model uncertainty, it is
bounded as well.
From (22), the vector collecting all the residuals relative to
the robot k, namely, r k = [1 r Tk , . . . , N r Tk ]T IR Nn , can be
expressed as


r k = diag{ k ,  k , . . . ,  k }r  =  k ( L y  +   )

= L k yk + k
(23)
where the vector yk = [1 yTk , . . . , N yTk ]T IR Nn collects the

estimation errors i yk of the observers and L k = L I n + k .

y k (t) = eko L k t yk (0)

 t

+
eko L k (t ) (1 N k ( ) + 1 N k ( )

III. FAULT D ETECTION AND I SOLATION S CHEMA

To detect the occurrence of a fault, let us define the
following residual vector for the i th robot:

i
r=
( j y i y) + i ( ym yi ).
(20)

(24)

ko k ( ))d.

(26)

Consequently, residual vector i r k can be expressed as

i


r k =  i r k =  i L k yk +  i k = i hk + i f k

(27)

where i hk (healthy) is the part of the residual not depending

on the fault, while i f k (faulty) is the part depending on k ,
whose expressions from (26) and (27) are

 t
t 

i

ko L
k
h k =  i k +  i L k e
yk (0) +
eko L k (t )
0

(1 N k ( ) ko k ())d (28)
 t


i
f k =  i L k
eko L k (t ) (1 N k ( ))d
(29)
0

respectively.
Therefore, from (27)(29), the following can be argued.
1) The residuals i r k for all i = 1, 2, . . . , N (i.e., the
residuals referred to the faulty robot) are affected by
the fault k via the term if k in (29).
2) All the residuals i r l for all i = 1, 2, . . . , N, and for all
l = k (i.e., all the residuals referred to a robot different
to the faulty one) are insensitive to the fault on robot k.
This completes the proof.
Remark 3.1: It is worth remarking that since the residuals
are decoupled in such a way that the fault k affects only
the residuals i r k (i = 1, 2, . . . , N), the proposed scheme
is effective also in the presence of multiple faults affecting
different robots.
The following Lemma for the detection and isolation of the
fault k can be stated.
Lemma 3.2: The fault k , affecting the kth robot, can be
detected and isolated by the robot i if

t > t f : i r k (t) > i k (t)
(30)
l (1, 2, . . . , N), l = k t > 0, i r l (t) i l (t)
where t f > 0 is the instant at which the fault starts and
j (t) (i, j ) are suitable thresholds defined in the following.

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Moreover, the following sufficient detectability condition for

the robot i holds:
t > t f : i f k  2 i k (t).

(31)

Proof: Condition (30) is easily derived by the fact that

only the residual i r k is affected by the fault k , as stated
in Lemma 3.1, while the other residuals computed by robot i
are insensitive to it. In the presence of nonzero initial observer
estimation errors, measurement noise, and model uncertainty,
the residuals in (20) can be different from zero as well, even in
the absence of faults. To avoid the occurrence of false alarms,
adaptive thresholds can be defined on the basis of the residual
structure and the bound in (5), then the decision about the
occurrence of a fault is made when a residual exceeds such
threshold.
Concerning the generic threshold i k , it is calculated based
on (28), considering the upper bound of the residual i hk
(i.e., in the absence of faults)
 



 
 

i hk   i k  +  i L k eko L k t yk (0) +  i L k 
 t 

 ko L k (t )

(1 N k ( ) ko k ( ))d

e
0





 

 i k  +  i L k eko L k t yk (0)
 t 



 
 ko L k (t ) 





+ i Lk
e
 ko + N d
0


i k  yk (0)et



N
  k o +





(1 et )
+ i Lk
(32)

where i k = 1 if i = k and i k = 0 otherwise, and the property

 k L  t 
e o k  et

(33)


with , > 0 has been exploited being ko L k Hurwitz [14].
Finally, since


 i L    i (L I n ) +  i k 
k

n  i (L I n )  +  i k 

n d i + i k
(34)

with di being the dimension of Ni (i.e., the in-degree of

node i ), (32) becomes


ndi + i k
i hk 




   t ko + N
t
(1 e )
+
 yk (0)e

+ i k = i k (t).
(35)
As far as the detectability condition is concerned, in the
presence of fault, based on (27), the following chain of
inequalities holds:
i r k  = i f k + i hk  i f k  i hk  i f k  i k (t).
(36)

Since the fault is detected by the robot i if i r k (t) > i k (t),

from (36) a sufficient detectability condition can be defined as
 
(37)
t > t f : if k  i k (t) i k (t)
from which condition (31) is straightforwardly derived.
Remark 3.2: Threshold in (32) requires a reliable estimate
of  yk (0), , and . The constant  yk (0) can be estimated
on the basis of approximate information about the initial
conditions of the system (e.g., the robots start from a known
bounded area). The more precise is the knowledge about the
initial conditions of the system, the more chance to detect a
fault in the initial phase of the experiment. If the Laplacian
matrix of the system is known to the robots, parameters
and can be computed, as shown in [14], as

1
M (H)
=
=
m (H)
M (H)
where M () (m ()) represents the maximum (minimum)
eigenvalue of the symmetric positive definite matrix
H IR NnNn solution of the Lyapunov equation


ko L k T H + ko H L k = 2 I Nn .

If the Laplacian matrix is not known to the robots of the


team, the matrix L k can be estimated by considering the worst
case scenario, corresponding to the maximum value of the
steady-state threshold. From (32), this case corresponds to the
maximum value of / for all the possible communication
graphs. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no
research result on which is the worst case, thus, as the possible
connectivity graphs with finite number of robots are finite as
well, it is possible to run an offline exhaustive search of these
parameters.
Remark 3.3: Concerning the computational load, the main
burden for each robot is represented by the observer in (7) that,
in turn, requires the calculation of the estimated control input
in (14). Such calculations are mandatory for the estimation
of the overall state of the system and, then, for detecting
and isolating faults even relative to not neighboring robots.
However, this load is fully compatible with standard robotic
boards even in the unlikely case of robot teams with hundreds
of robots. The experiment in Section V proves how the
designed approach works using a setup with quite limited
computational capabilities.
IV. N UMERICAL S IMULATIONS
In this section, we present the results of a numerical
simulation analysis performed to validate the effectiveness
of the controllerobserver and FDI strategies presented in
the previous sections. In particular, we considered a team of
five mobile robots, each of them implementing the control
algorithm in (14) and the observer in (7), where the control
and observer gains were set, respectively, to kc = 1.3 and
ko = 2. The network topology is assumed as a rigid directed
graph, as reported in Fig. 1.
The robots were commanded to keep a constantly linear
formation with a relative distance of 0.4 m, while the team centroid was commanded to follow a sinusoidal path. Uniformly

ARRICHIELLO et al.: OBSERVER-BASED DECENTRALIZED FDI STRATEGY

1471

Fig. 3.

Fig. 1.

Simulation case study. Real input ui (t) =  i i u ( i) to the robots.

Simulation case study. Topology of the communication network.

Fig. 2. Simulation case study. Paths of the robots during the mission. Crosses
are the initial positions, diamonds the final ones, and circles intermediate
configurations.

distributed random noise with a bounded norm ( = 0.05 m)

was added to the state measurements, as in (4), as well as
uniformly distributed random uncertainty with a bounded norm
( = 0.05 m/s) was added to the process input signals, as
in (1).
During the motion, we induce two successive input failures
to two of the robots (robot 2 and robot 3); specifically, we
applied an additive constant input term 3 = [0.3, 0.3]T for
t > 20 s to robot 3; and we assume that robot 2 stops for
t > 30 (this means null input command and 2 (t) = u2 (t)
for t > 30 s).
The information initially available to each robot is assumed
to be limited to its position (x i (t0 )) and to the number of robots
in the team (N). Each local observer i x is then initialized as
all the robots were in the same position (i x j (t0 ) = x i (t0 ), j ),
i.e., i x (t0 ) = 1 N x i (t0 ). The robots are initially displaced
inside a closed region of 2 m 2 m (centered in [1.5, 2] m)
following a uniformly random distribution. Assuming that the
size of the area in which the robots are initially displaced is
known, the previous initialization choices allow for evaluating
the maximum initial values of the residual errors and for using
them in the residual adaptive thresholds computation in (32).
Fig. 2 shows the paths of the robots during the mission and
the desired path of the team centroid, while Fig. 3 shows the
input to the robots. From the figures, it is possible to notice that
due to the occurrence of the two faults, robot 2 stops during
the course of the mission (null input for t > 30 s), while
robot 3 escapes from the desired linear formation (additive
input term for t > 20 s).

Fig. 4. Simulation case study. Plots of the state estimation ( x  ), centroid,
and formation task errors ( 1  and  2 ).

Fig. 5. Simulation case study. Solid line: norm of the residual components
relative to robot 1 (a nonfaulty robot) as computed by the different robots.
Dashed line: threshold used for the fault detection.

Fig. 4 shows the plots of the norms of the estimation

and task functions errors, and it is possible to note that all
the errors approach a neighborhood of the origin before the
occurrence of the first fault. Figs. 57 show the norms of the
residual components (solid lines) of the different observers
relative to robots 1, 2, and 3, respectively; such figures also
show the adaptive threshold values used for the fault detection

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Fig. 8. Experimental case study. Picture of the four Khepera III robots used
for the experiments.

Fig. 6. Simulation case study. Solid line: norm of the residual components
relative to robot 2 (the faulty robot with null input term for t > 30) as
computed by the different robots. Dashed line: threshold used for the fault
detection. Fault occurred at t = 30 s.

Fig. 7. Simulation case study. Solid line: norm of the residual components
relative to robot 3 (the faulty robot with constant additive constant input term
for t > 20) as computed by the different robots. Dashed line: threshold used
for the fault detection. Fault occurred at t = 20 s.

(dashed lines). In detail, Fig. 5 shows that the residuals i r 1

(i = 1, 2, . . . , N), i.e., the residuals computed by the robots
and related to a nonfaulty robot (robot 1 in this case) do not
overcome the corresponding threshold i 1 . The same happens
for the residuals of the other nonfaulty robots and their plots
are here omitted for brevity. Figs. 6 and 7 show that all the
robots are able to detect the faults of robots 2 and 3, even if
not directly connected to them, as shown in Fig. 1.
V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
In this section, we present the results of an experimental
analysis performed with a multirobot system to validate the
effectiveness of the FDI strategy presented above. In particular,
we used a team of four Khepera III robots (Fig. 8) that are
small-sized (12 cm diameter) differential drive mobile robots.
Each robot is equipped with a Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01

laser range finder and adopts the software module developed

in [4] to perform localization in indoor environments based
on extended Kalman filter and on the Hough transform. Such
a module allows for estimating the position of the robots
with respect to a known map of the environment. Based on
several trials relative to the localization module using known
reference points and assigned paths, the localization error of
each robot is of the order of 0.05 m. In addition, each robot
is equipped with a IEEE 802.11 wireless card that we used
to built a wireless ad hoc network to allow direct information
exchange among the robots. Since the communication range
of the wireless links is much larger than the size of the
experiments area, the topology of the communication graph is
complete (all-to-all communication); however, to avoid having
a complete communication graph, the adjacency matrixes are
assigned a priori so as to reduce the number of communicating
neighbors.
The used robots are differential drive robots that do not
have a single integrator dynamics but a unicycle-like kinematic
model as
  

cos(i )
x
v
x i = i =
sin(i ) i
yi
where i is the robot orientation such that i = i , v i is the
linear velocity and i is the angular velocity. The designed
control strategy produces a desired velocity vector ui that,
in general, cannot be executed by robot i because of its
nonholonomic constraint. For this reason, a low-level
controller has been implemented on board of the robots,
which is in charge of generating angular and linear velocity
commands to make the robots track the assigned velocity
command ui . The effects of the low-level control and the
estimate of the localization error module are used in an
empirical procedure to set the FDI thresholds.
Observer and control gains were set to ko = 2 and kc = 1.3
in (7) and (14), respectively. The network topology is assumed
as a circular undirected graph.
The information initially available to each robot is assumed
to be limited to its position (x i (t0 )) and to the number of
robots in the team (N). Thus, as in the simulation case study,
the initial state estimation is set equal to i x (t0 )|t0 =0 = 1 N x i ,
i.e., each robot initializes the estimate of the collective
state assuming that all the other robots have its same
initial position (that is the only variable directly measurable).
The robots are initially displaced inside a closed region of
2 m 2 m. As for the simulation case study, this information

ARRICHIELLO et al.: OBSERVER-BASED DECENTRALIZED FDI STRATEGY

Fig. 9.

1473

Experimental case study. Robot paths followed during the mission.

Fig. 11. Experimental case study. Centroid ( 1 ) and formation ( 2 ) tracking

errors.

Fig. 10. Experimental case study. Norm of the state estimation error x 
(thick line) and of its individual components (thin lines).

allows for computing a conservative guess of  yk (0)

in (32).
In the considered case, the team of robots is commanded
to execute a switching formation control mission in a large
indoor environment (20 m of length). Specifically, the robots
were commanded to move the centroid along a straight line,
following a trapezoidal velocity profile, while the formation
shape switches from linear to circular. During the motion,
we induce a temporary input failure to one of the robots
by applying a null input command ( 4 (t) = u4 (t) for
80 < t < 110 s), i.e., the robot suddenly stops (80 t 110)
and recovers (t > 110).
Fig. 9 shows the paths of the robots during the mission as
well as a few intermediate positions. From the figure, it is
possible noticing that robot 4 stops between 80 < t < 110 s
due to the fault occurrence but it recovers the formation when
the fault is over (t > 110 s).
Fig. 10 shows the time history of the norm of the state
estimation error  x   and of its individual components; considering that  x   is a cumulative vector of dimension N 2 n
(that, in the specific case, is equal to 32), it is possible to
note that at steady state and in the absence of faults, the
mean estimation error of each robot is of few centimeters.
Thus, the estimation error decreases until the occurrence of
the fault on robot 4 (at t = 80 s) increases when the fault is
present (80 t 110 s) and decreases when the fault is over
(t > 110 s).
Fig. 11 shows the centroid and formation task function
errors ( 1 and 2 ). In the absence of faults, the task function
errors remain limited and close to zero. The small errors can
be justified by the localization accuracy.
Figs. 12 and 13 show the norms of the residual components
(solid line) of the different observers relative to the
robots 1 and 4, respectively, and also show the adaptive
threshold values used for the fault detection (dashed line).
Fig. 13 shows that all the robots are able to detect the fault
of robot 4, even if there is not direct communication with

Fig. 12. Experimental case study. Solid line: norm of the residual components
i r (i = 1, 2, . . . , N ) as computed by the different robots relative to a
1
nonfaulty robot (robot 1 in this case). Dashed line: threshold used for the
fault detection.

Fig. 13. Experimental case study. Solid line: norm of the residual components
i r (i = 1, 2, . . . , N ) as computed by the different robots relative to the faulty
4
robot (robot 4). Dashed line: threshold used for the fault detection.

the faulty robot; moreover, it shows that the residual terms

go back below the corresponding thresholds when the fault
is over. Finally, Fig. 12 shows that the components of the

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO. 4, JULY 2015

residuals related to a not faulty vehicle (robot 1 in this case)

are not affected by the fault occurrence. This feature is, indeed,
obtained thanks to the introduction of the variable y in the
observer in (7). The same happens for the residuals of the
other not faulty robots; their plot is here omitted for brevity.
A video of the experiment can be found in [1].
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we presented a distributed FDI strategy
for networked robots jointly working with a distributed
observercontroller schema. Based on the designed observer,
a proper vector of residuals is introduced, and fault detectability and isolability conditions are analytically derived. Differently from previous works in literature, healthy robots are able
to detect and isolate the faulty ones even in the case they
are not directly connected. The approach has been validated
via numerical simulation considering the case of multiple
faults, as well as with the experimental results with a team
of networked robots considering temporary faults. As future
works, the extension of the diagnosis approach to more general
control inputs and to the case of switching topologies will
be investigated; moreover, a fault accommodation schema is
under investigation.
A PPENDIX
P ROOF OF T HEOREM 2.2

for
and thus by collecting the differences u(t) i u(t)
i = 1, 2, . . . , N, it is

!
N

1x
k

k x

k=1
!

N

2

kx
x

k



. (42)
u = 1 N u u = kc
k=1

..

!
N
N


k
x
k x
k=1

Let us define the following matrix:

 = 1 N [1 , 2 , . . . ,  N ] IR N 2 nN 2 n ;

it is


) x  .
1 N u u  = kc (I N 2 n 

 ) = N 2 n rank(
 ) = N 2 n Nn.
rank(I N 2 n 


) is symmetric and it has

Property 3: Matrix (I N 2 n 
2
N n Nn eigenvalues equal to 1 and Nn eigenvalues
equal to 0. It is a direct consequence of Property 2 and
 ) is idempotent (idempotent
of the fact that (I N 2 n 
matrices admits only 0 and 1 as eigenvalues).
Applying Property 1, it is straightforward to show that
 ) x  = kc (I N 2 n 
 ) x  .
kc (I N 2 n 


x  = ko L y + u  .

(38)

Since x  = 1 N x = 1 N (u + ) = u +  , the system

in (38) can be written as

x  = ko L y + u  +  = u  (t, x  ) + d

(39)

with u  = 1 N u u  = [1 u T 2 u T , . . . , N u T ]T IR N n and

d = ko L y +  . Provided that the conditions in
Theorem 2.1 and in (2) and (5) hold, the above system can be
seen as a dynamical systems with d as a bounded disturbance
term.
As a consequence, the error x  in (39) exponentially reaches
the origin provided the system
2

x  = u  (t, x  ) + d

(40)

is exponentially stable. It is, thus, necessary to find an expression of u  as a function of x  in the case of the control law
in (14). At this end, it holds
u = u(t) i u(t)

k k u(t)
i u(t)

k=1


= kc

N


J x
i

N

k=1


k J

(44)

The properties listed below will be exploited in the

following
 (1 N v) = (1 N v).
Property 1: 
 ) is idempotent
Property 2: As the matrix (I N 2 n 

The system in (9) can be written as

(43)

J x
k

(41)

In sum, the system in (40) becomes

 ) x  + d.
x  = kc (I N 2 n 

(45)

From Property (3), it follows that the dynamic matrix of the

above system is symmetric negative semidefinite. Thus, in the
absence of measurement and process noise, the solution to
the above system is

(46)
x  (t) = ekc ( I N 2 n  )t x  (t )
0

where x (t0 ) is the collection of the estimation errors at the

initial time instant. As a final step, it is
 x  (t0 )
x  = lim x  (t) = 
t +

(47)

where the property lim e At = I A for any idempotent

t +
matrix A was exploited. In sum
 x  (t0 ) = (1 N [1 , 2 , . . . ,  N ]) x  (t0 )
x  = 
(48)
= 1 N ([1 , 2 , . . . ,  N ] x  (t0 )).
Equation (48) clearly states that i x = j x , i, j , and thus, all
the estimates i x exponentially converge to a common value.
However, there is no evidence that this value is x. To show
that the consensus value is, indeed, x, it is worth noting that,
as a consequence of y = 0 at steady state
 t
 t
i
i
ud
ud

i
(49)
x x =
t0

t0

ARRICHIELLO et al.: OBSERVER-BASED DECENTRALIZED FDI STRATEGY

and since i (u i u ) = i (
it holds

t
t0

ud

i (x i x ) = 0

t
t0

i ud
)

= 0, i ,
(50)

i.e., each vehicle is able to estimate its own state. The

straightforward consequence of (48) and (50) is that i x
reaches x, i = 1, 2, . . . , N. Based on Theorem 2.1 and bounds
in (2) and (5), in the presence of bounded measurement noise
and model uncertainty, the disturb d is a nonvanishing bounded
input; thus, x  is bounded as well (the result comes from the
same argumentation made in Theorem 2.1).
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Filippo Arrichiello was born in Naples, Italy, in

1979. He received the Laurea degree in mechanical
engineering from the University of Naples, Naples,
in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and information engineering from the University of Cassino
and Southern Lazio, Cassino, Italy, in 2007.
He joined as a Visiting Ph.D. Student with the
Centre of Excellence and the Centre of Ships and
Ocean Structures, Norwegian University of Science
and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, in 2005. From
2008 to 2011, he spent seven months as a Visiting
Researcher with the Robotic Embedded Systems Laboratory, University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. He is currently an Associate
Professor of Control Engineering with the University of Cassino and Southern
Lazio, where he held a post-doctoral position and was an Assistant Professor
from 2006 to 2014. He has authored over 50 papers published in international
journals and conferences proceedings in the field of robotics. His research
interests include industrial and mobile robotics with a specific interest in
multirobot systems and marine robotics.
Dr. Arrichiello has been a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation
Society since 2004.

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Alessandro Marino was born in Potenza, Italy, in

1982. He received the Laurea degree in computer
engineering from the University of Naples Federico
II, Naples, Italy, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree
in industrial and innovation engineering from the
University of Basilicata, Potenza, in 2010.
He held a post-doctoral position with the University of Cassino, Cassino, Italy, from 2010 to 2011.
In 2008, he was a Visiting Scholar with the Department of Computer Science, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, TN, USA, and a Visiting Researcher with
the Instituto Superior Tcnico, Lisboa, Portugal, in 2011. Since 2011, he has
been an Assistant Professor with the University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy.
He has authored several conference papers and journal papers. His current
research interests include cooperative robot manipulation, trajectory planning,
control of multirobot systems, and marine robotics.
Dr. Marino is currently a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation
Society and the IEEE Control System Society. Since 2013, he has been an
Associate Editor of the IEEE I NTERNATIONAL C ONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS
AND AUTOMATION . He is also on the Program Committee of the IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics.

Francesco Pierri received the Laurea (cum laude)

degree in mechanical engineering and the
Ph.D. degree in environmental engineering from
the University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy, in 2003
and 2007, respectively.
He was a Visiting Scholar with the Department
of Automatic Control, Lund University, Lund,
Sweden, in 2006. Since 2008, he has been an
Assistant Professor with the School of Engineering,
University of Basilicata. He has co-authored over 35
journal and conference papers and a book entitled
Control and Monitoring of Chemical Batch Reactors (Springer, 2011). His
current research interests include planning and control of aerial robots and
fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control for nonlinear systems.
Dr. Pierri has been a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation
Society and the IEEE Control System Society since 2004. Since 2013, he
has been an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Robotics and
Automation. In 2012, 2013, and 2014, he was an Associate Editor of the
IEEE I NTERNATIONAL C ONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION.
He is on the Program Committee of the 2014 IEEE International Conference
on Robotics and Biomimetics.