Redundancy and Fault Tolerance in Elevator System Design

Redundancy has been applied in elevator system design particularly to mechanical safety systems. With the advent of the microprocessor technology issues of reliability, redundancy and fault tolerance are more often considered and evaluated in elevator control system design, group design and additional safety systems. A great deal has been learned in the discipline of redundancy and fault tolerance in the aircraft, spacecraft and related industries. It is important to understand these principles of fault tolerance when designing or evaluating the performance of a prospective elevator system. I will review some of the major principles and methods to obtain and assess the level of fault tolerance in a system and apply it to elevator systems.