Incipient fault diagnosis for T–S fuzzy systems with application to high‐speed railway traction devices

This study addresses the problem of incipient fault detection and diagnosis for Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy systems and explores further results of total measurable fault information residual (ToMFIR). First, T–S fuzzy model is used to describe the global dynamics of a non‐linear system and the model of incipient actuator faults is formalised. Second, based on the ToMFIR, a novel incipient fault detection method is proposed, which removes the assumptions on system structure in some existing work. Further, sliding‐mode observers combined with ToMFIR‐based thresholds are designed for incipient fault isolation. Finally, application results conducted on a high‐speed railway traction device are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.