System and method for recognizing faults in machines

• US 6,907,545 B2
• Filed: 03/02/2001
• Issued: 06/14/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Original Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Inventors: Jacobson, Gary S., Rich, David L., Ramadei, Michael J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel, Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): MASKULINSKI, MICHAEL C
• Application Number:
  US09/752,068
• Publication Number:
  US 20020166082A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,565 Days
• Field of Search: 714/25, 714/26, 714/37, 706 45- 48, 706 53- 55
• US Class Current: 714/25
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2294 by remote test

Abstract

A system and method for diagnosing one or more faults or one or more potential faults in a machine. The system and method has a communications module for communicating machine data between the machine and the system. It also has a fault recognition module for analyzing the machine data, which can determine one or more faults or potential faults in the machine. An expert system module having a fault tree is guided through only a truncated portion of the fault tree based upon output from the fault recognition module.

Claims

1. A method for diagnosing at least one potential or actual fault in a machine comprising:

analyzing data from the machine to determine a fault indicia for at least one potential or actual fault;

applying said data to a plurality of filters wherein each filter is user configured to recognize a specific error in said machine; and

applying the fault indicia to a fault tree having a starting point and being representative of the machine, the fault indicia being applied at a location other than the starting point of the fault tree to determine a diagnostic path within the fault tree.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data is in a log data file format.

3. A system for diagnosing at least one potential or actual fault in a machine comprising:

a communications module for communicating machine data between the machine and the system;

a fault recognition module for analyzing the machine data to determine at least one potential or actual faults, said fault recognition model includes a plurality of filters wherein each filter is user configured to recognize a specific error in said machine; and

an expert system module having a fault tree with a starting point, where the expert system module is guided through the fault tree at a location other than the starting point of the fault tree by the determination of at least one potential or actual faults by the fault recognition module.