This paper presents a specific controller architecture devoted to obtain a permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive that is robust to mechanical sensor failure. In order to increase the reliability which is a key issue in industrial and transportation applications (electric or hybrid ground vehicle or aerospace actuators), two virtual sensors (a two-stage extended Kalman filter and a back-electromotive-force adaptive observer) and a maximum-likelihood voting algorithm are combined with the actual sensor to build a fault-tolerant controller (FTC). The observers are evaluated through simulation and experimental results. The FTC feasibility is proved through simulations and experiments on a 1.1-kW PMSM drive.