Sensorivikojen

Sensorivikojen, literally “sensor faults” in Finnish, refer to faults or defects in sensing devices that degrade the accuracy, reliability, or availability of sensor data. In practice, sensorivikojen can cause readings to drift, saturate, become intermittently unavailable, or respond slowly to changes in the measured quantity. They are a central concern in many engineering domains where automated sensing informs decisions or control loops.

Common types include bias drift, offset, noise increase, gain error, stuck or frozen readings, intermittent faults, and complete sensor failure. Causes include manufacturing tolerances, aging, temperature and environmental conditions, vibration, EMI, moisture intrusion, wear, and improper installation or calibration. Sensoriviokojen often interact with sensor fusion algorithms, where inconsistent data from multiple sensors can signal a fault.

Detection and diagnosis rely on redundancy and diagnostics: cross-checking readings from multiple sensors, self tests, and statistical anomaly detection. Techniques include watchdog checks, Kalman filter residual analysis, residuals thresholds, and calibration checks. Data logging and health monitoring are used for maintenance planning.

Mitigation strategies include design for fault tolerance: redundancy (duplicate sensors or diverse sensing modalities), graceful degradation, regular calibration, environmental protection, and robust signal processing. In safety-critical industries such as automotive, aerospace, or process control, sensor health monitoring is integrated into system architecture and safety standards to ensure safe operation.

Related concepts include sensor fusion and fault detection and isolation, calibration, redundancy, and health monitoring.