In model-based diagnosis there are often more candidate residual generators than what is needed and residual selection is therefore an important step in the design of model-based diagnosis systems. The availability of computer-aided tools for automatic generation of residual generators have made it easier to generate a large set of candidate residual generators for fault detection and isolation. Fault detection performance varies significantly between different candidates due to the impact of model uncertainties and measurement noise. Thus, to achieve satisfactory fault detection and isolation performance, these factors must be taken into consideration when formulating the residual selection problem. Here, a convex optimization problem is formulated as a residual selection approach, utilizing both structural information about the different residuals and training data from different fault scenarios. The optimal solution corresponds to a minimal set of residual generators with guaranteed performance. Measurement data and residual generators from an internal combustion engine test-bed is used as a case study to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed method. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.