SYSTEM FOR MONITORING AND DIAGNOSING REMOTE DEVICES

• US 20090235119A1
• Filed: 02/27/2009
• Published: 09/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Sumi, Katsuhiro, Idemori, Kimito, Ooba, Yoshikazu
• Granted Patent: US 8,306,782 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/27
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/024 Quantitative history assessment, e.g. mathematical relationships between available data; Functions therefor; Principal component analysis [PCA]; Partial least square [PLS]; Statistical classifiers, e.g. Bayesian networks, linear regression or correlation analysis; Neural networks

Abstract

According to one embodiment, a monitoring/diagnostic apparatus is provided, which is designed for use in a system for monitoring and diagnosing a plurality of object devices. The monitoring/diagnostic apparatus has an agent management module and a diagnostic module. The agent management module is configured to manage agents for collecting operation data of an object device. The diagnostic module uses the operation data collected, thereby to diagnose a problem in the objective device.

Claims

1. An apparatus for monitoring and diagnosing an object device, comprising:

a communications module configured to perform data communication via a network with at least another apparatus for monitoring and diagnosing another object device;

a data acquisition module configured to acquire operation data about the object apparatus;

an agent management module configured to transmit an agent to the network and manage the agent, thereby to collect the operation data about the other object device from the at least another apparatus;

a storage module configured to store the operation data acquired by the data acquisition module and the operation data collected by the agent; and

a diagnostic module configured to perform a problem-diagnosis process by using the operation data stored in the storage module and to diagnose a problem in the object device on the basis of a results of the problem-diagnosis process.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, which is grouped with the at least another apparatus and connected thereto via the network in a monitoring and diagnostic system, wherein the apparatus and the at least another apparatus exchange a result of diagnosis performed by each other.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a detection module configured to detect abnormality in the operation data acquired by the data acquisition module,

wherein the agent management module activates the agent when the detection module detects the abnormality.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the diagnostic module performs a principal component analysis during the problem-diagnosis process and diagnoses the problem on the basis of a result of the principal component analysis.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the agent management module activates a diagnostic agent for diagnosing the problem in detail, when the detection module detects the abnormality.

6. The apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising an operation-data dispersion analysis module configured to extract greatly dispersed operation data from intra-group operation data stored in the storage module,

wherein the diagnostic module performs the principal component analysis by using the operation data extracted by the during the problem-diagnosis process and diagnoses the on the basis of a result of the principal component analysis.

7. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a operation-data history storage module configured to store operation-data history information consisting of operation data items acquired in time sequence by the data acquisition module,

wherein the diagnostic module uses the operation-data history information to detect whether the object device may have a problem due to long use.

8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the diagnostic module uses the operation-data history information to perform a principal component analysis and detects whether the object device has a problem due to long use, on the basis of a result of the principal component analysis.

9. A system for monitoring and diagnosing grouped object devices, comprising:

monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses associated with the object devices, respectively, each having a diagnostic module for diagnosing a problem in the associated object device and an agent management module for managing agents;

a network configured to achieve data communication between the monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses; and

an agent system in which any agent transmitted from each of the monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses via the network circulates in the group of object devices to collect operation data and diagnostic result from each monitoring/diagnostic apparatus.

10. The system according to claim 9, further comprising:

an information distribution module configured to distribute device-component information about the grouped object devices via the network to the monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses; and

an agent distributing module configured to distribute to necessary agents to the monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses.

11. The system according to claim 9, further comprising an notification module configured to generate inspection-point data from a result of a problem-diagnosis process and maintenance data, both acquired from each monitoring/diagnostic apparatus, and configured to supply the inspection-point data to maintenance stations provided for the grouped object devices, respectively.

12. The system according to claim 9, wherein the agent management module activates a diagnostic agent for diagnosing a problem in detail, when the diagnostic module detects that the object device has a problem due to long use.

13. The system according to claim 12, further comprising a module configured to distribute the diagnostic agent to the monitoring/diagnostic apparatus via the network when the diagnostic module detects that the object device has a problem due to long use.

14. The system according to claim 9, wherein the grouped monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses are divided into sub-groups, and servers are provided for the sub-groups,

wherein each server has:

a module configured to distribute the device-component information to the monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses of each sub-group; and

a module configured to distribute necessary agents to the monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses of each sub-group.