Abstract: A fault tolerance and fault rectification strategy for sensor faults of radar antenna platforms (RAPs) is presented. If fault occurs in one of the sensors of the three driving legs, the real value of the fault sensor can be computed by the detected value of the sensors of the other two driving legs and the passive leg redundant sensor, utilizing the spatial closed chain constraint relationship. Corresponding algorithms of fault tolerance reconfiguration for displacement sensors are derived. A hardware implementation approach for the strategy of fault tolerance and fault rectification is studied based on field programmable gate array (FPGA), which, by introducing the coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC) algorithm, only requires basic shifting and addition/subtraction operation in FPGA computing. High speed pipeline processor structure is designed for the algorithm, which greatly enhances the online computing speed of the reconfiguration algorithm. Simulation of the strategy is conducted by emulation of an abrupt type sensor fault. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy of fault tolerance and fault rectification can guarantee the reliability and safety of RAP system effectively.

Key words: radar antenna platform, fault tolerance, fault rectification, field programmable gate array, reconfiguration