AUTOMATIC REMOTE MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS SYSTEM

• US 20100235142A1
• Filed: 03/17/2010
• Published: 09/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GE Infrastructure Technology, LLC (GE Vernova, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Bureau, Aurélie, Jammu, Vinay Bhaskar, De, Soumen, Morjaria, Mahesh Amritlal, Graichen, Catherine Mary, Smolenski, Arnim
• Granted Patent: US 8,126,679 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/183
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/33303 Expert system for diagnostic, monitoring use of tree and probability
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0248 Causal models, e.g. fault tree; digraphs; qualitative physics
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0278 Qualitative, e.g. if-then rules; Fuzzy logic; Lookup tables; Symptomatic search; FMEA

Abstract

A Monitoring and Diagnostics System is provided, which includes a monitoring unit and a monitored unit remotely located from the monitoring unit. The System also includes communication means between the monitoring unit and the monitored unit. The monitored unit includes data acquisition means for providing fault data of the monitored unit and the communication means are adapted to communicate the fault data from the monitored unit to the monitoring unit. The monitoring unit includes a rules engine having a set of expert rules for analyzing the information contained in the fault data and being adapted to deduce diagnostics information from the rules and from the information. In addition, a communication method for communicating between a first Programmable Logic Controller and a second Programmable Logic Controller or a central unit is provided, in which a description file is provided.

Claims

1. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System, comprising

a monitoring unit, a monitored unit, and communication means between said monitoring unit and said monitored unit, wherein said Monitoring and Diagnostics System is configured such that:

said monitored unit comprises data acquisition means for providing fault data of said monitored unit,

said communication means are adapted to communicate the fault data from said monitored unit to said monitoring unit, and

said monitoring unit comprises a reasoning engine comprising a diagnostics knowledge for analyzing the information contained in the fault data and being adapted to deduce diagnostics information from said diagnostics knowledge and from said information.

2. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein the reasoning engine comprises at least one of the following elements:

Bayesian belief networks, causality engines, rules engines, causal trees, decision trees, classification trees, simulation engines, neural networks, and database comparisons.

3. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein said diagnostics knowledge comprises at least one of the following elements:

Bayesian graphs, procedures, sets of expert rules, causal or decision tree databases, and other databases.

4. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein said reasoning engine is adapted to analyze a cross-relation between a plurality of faults contained in the fault data.

5. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 further comprising control means for controlling the settings of said monitored unit.

6. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1, further comprising a database recording fault data and said diagnostics information.

7. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 further comprising means for updating said diagnostics knowledge.

8. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 comprising a plurality monitored units.

9. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein said reasoning engine is further adapted to provide, depending on the information contained in the fault data, suggestions for possible next steps to be undertaken.

10. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein said reasoning engine is further adapted to determine and initiate, depending on the information contained in the fault data, a course of action to be taken.

11. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 10, further comprising cross-validation means for checking if the initiated course of action was successfully performed.

12. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein said monitoring unit comprises remote from said monitored unit.

13. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein said monitored unit is a wind turbine.

14. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 13 wherein one possible course of action to be taken is an automatic reset of the wind turbine.

15. A Monitoring and Diagnostics System according to claim 1 wherein the communication means are such that the fault data to be communicated can be selected, by at least one of fault, fault type, monitored unit, and a cluster of monitored units.

16-23. -23. (canceled)

24. A method for monitoring a unit using a Monitoring and Diagnostics System, said method comprising:

coupling a monitoring unit to a monitored unit via a communication means;

receiving, by the monitoring unit, fault data from the monitored unit via the communication means;

analyzing information contained in the fault data; and

determining diagnostics information from the information using a diagnostics knowledge of the monitoring unit.

25. A method according to claim 24 further comprising providing, depending on the information contained in the fault data, suggestions for possible next steps to be undertaken.

26. A method according to claim 24 further comprising determining and initiating, depending on the information contained in the fault data, a course of action to be taken.

27. A monitoring unit, comprising:

a communication interface configured to receiving fault data from a monitored unit via a communication means; and

a reasoning engine configured to;

analyze the fault data; and

generate at least one suggested next step to be undertaken for the monitored unit based on the fault data.

28. A monitoring unit according to claim 27 further comprising a parsing means configured to analyze the fault data and generate fault data values based on the fault data, said reasoning engine configured to analyze the fault data values.