Abstract
This paper presents a novel control reconfiguration framework for ship systems, designed to maintain stable and efficient closed-loop operation in the presence of multiple faults affecting the control feedback sensors. To ensure resilient operation, the framework integrates multiple cyber components, including monitoring agents, control agents and virtual sensors. A multi-sensory switching logic decides between hardware and virtual feedback sensors based on performance, operational safety and control stability criteria. A novelty of this paper lies in the analytical derivation of stability conditions that determine whether a candidate virtual-sensor configuration is admissible within the closed-loop system. These criteria are analytically derived leveraging a model-based control design, founded on feedback linearization techniques. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed control framework, a hybrid propulsion plant case study is considered under permanent abrupt sensor faults and measurement noise. The framework is shown to maintain closed-loop operation and satisfactory reference-tracking performance following sensor reconfiguration. A comparison with a baseline PID-based reconfiguration approach without the proposed stability conditions further demonstrates the benefit of the developed methodology. The virtual sensors also provide sufficiently accurate state reconstruction to support the reconfiguration process.