Re: Durability in FRC
 

Redundancy is often used to help out Durability's sibling "Reliability". Durability and Reliability are kind of like precision and accuracy. They are heavily related, but not the same thing. Sometimes they use similar units of measure. Durability is keeping something from wearing out. Reliability is keeping something from causing a mission failure. Adding a second sensor doesn't improve the durability of the first sensor, but it can improve the reliability of the sensing system (if you have good fault detection and override algorithms). Without good fault detection and arbitration software, you can inadvertently make the system less reliable.

Occasionally though, redundancy can improve reliability & durability. This is sometimes the case with pumps or motors where 1 pump at full power can do the job, but will only last a short period of time before overheating. Using two pumps allows you to reduce the load by 50% and occasionally this can increase life by as much as 1 order of magnitude (for instance 100 hours goes to 1,000 hours). Think of it as how long can you run a CIM at peak power versus same speed, but half the torque...

Often these sorts of thins can be measured in Mean Miles Between Failure (for cars) or Mean Time Between Failure (industrial or off-road machinery).