Fault diagnosis system
First Claim
1. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the system including:
- means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and
means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment,wherein said diagnostic signatures relate the set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed unrelated to said known faults, andwherein the system is arranged to calculate the diagnostic data such that a fault symptom being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed indicative of a known fault in said diagnostic signatures provides a more positive contribution to a value indicative of likelihood of the corresponding fault being causative, than a different fault symptom being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed unrelated to the fault in said diagnostic signatures.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment. The system includes means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing the diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment. The diagnostic data includes a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment.
82 Citations
36 Claims
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1. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the system including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein said diagnostic signatures relate the set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed unrelated to said known faults, and wherein the system is arranged to calculate the diagnostic data such that a fault symptom being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed indicative of a known fault in said diagnostic signatures provides a more positive contribution to a value indicative of likelihood of the corresponding fault being causative, than a different fault symptom being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed unrelated to the fault in said diagnostic signatures. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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26. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the system including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein the values indicative of non-zero likelihood are calculated using normalization across a calculated set of values. - View Dependent Claims (27)
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28. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment the system including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein said diagnostic signatures relate the set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed unrelated to said known faults, and wherein the system is arranged to calculate the diagnostic data such that a fault symptom not being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed indicative of a known fault in said diagnostic signatures provides a more positive contribution to a value indicative of likelihood of the corresponding fault being causative, than a different fault symptom being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed unrelated to the fault in said diagnostic signatures.
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29. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the system including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein said diagnostic signatures relate the set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed unrelated to said known faults, and wherein the system is arranged such that a fault symptom which is deemed unrelated to a known fault has a more positive contribution to a value indicative of likelihood for the fault, when the symptom is not present in said current state symptoms, than the contribution of the same symptom, when present in said current state symptoms, to a value indicative of likelihood for the same fault probability.
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30. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the system including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein the system is connected to receive an indication of a fault fix input by a human operator and to recalculate said diagnostic data in response thereto.
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31. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the system including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein said means for processing includes means for calculating the diagnostic data by calculating a first set of values indicative of likelihood, means for identifying faults which have the smallest likelihoods of being causative, and means for performing a recalculation of said diagnostic data whilst taking said faults having the smallest likelihoods of being causative to have an effectively zero likelihood of being causative.
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32. A computer readable medium encoded with a computer program to provide a fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the computer program including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein said diagnostic signatures relate the set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed unrelated to said known faults, and wherein the system is arranged to calculate the diagnostic data such that a fault symptom being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed indicative of a known fault in said diagnostic signatures provides a more positive contribution to a value indicative of likelihood of the corresponding fault being causative, than a different fault symptom being present in said current state symptoms and being deemed unrelated to the fault in said diagnostic signatures.
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33. A computer-implemented method for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the method comprising:
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storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment; and communicating the calculated diagnostic data to a human operator, wherein the system is connected to receive an indication of a fault fix input by the human operator, and to recalculate said diagnostic data in response thereto.
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34. A computer-implemented method for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the method comprising:
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storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment wherein the values indicative of non-zero likelihood are calculated using normalization across a calculated set of values; and storing the calculated diagnostic data.
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35. A computer-implemented method for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the method comprising:
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storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein said processing step includes calculating the diagnostic data by calculating a first set of values indicative of likelihood, identifying faults which have the smallest likelihoods of being causative, and performing a recalculation of said diagnostic data whilst taking said faults having relatively small likelihoods of being causative to have an effectively zero likelihood of being causative; and storing the calculated diagnostic data.
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36. A fault diagnosis system for diagnosing faults in complex equipment, the system including:
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means for storing a set of diagnostic signatures which relates a set of known faults which may occur in the equipment to respective fault symptoms which are deemed indicative of said known faults; and means for processing said diagnostic signatures and a set of fault symptoms identified for a current state of the equipment, to calculate diagnostic data for identifying a fault causing the current state of the equipment, the diagnostic data including a plurality of values which are indicative of different relative non-zero likelihoods of each of a plurality of different known faults causing the current state of the equipment, wherein the means for storing diagnostic signatures defined three possible states for a fault/symptom pair, namely;
the existence of a link;
the possible existence of a link; and
the certain absence of a link.
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Specification