System for monitoring and diagnosing remote devices

• US 8,306,782 B2
• Filed: 02/27/2009
• Issued: 11/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Idemori, Kimito, Ooba, Yoshikazu, Sumi, Katsuhiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Charioui, Mohamed
• Assistant Examiner(s): SUAREZ, FELIX E
• Application Number:
  US12/395,009
• Publication Number:
  US 20090235119A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,348 Days
• Field of Search: 702/27, 702/56, 702/179, 702/181, 702/182, 702/184, 702/185, 702/187, 702/188, 345/716, 700/21, 701/33
• US Class Current: 702/185
• 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. A system for monitoring and diagnosing object devices grouped in accordance with model or series, comprising:

monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses associated with the object devices, respectively, each having a diagnostic module for diagnosing a problem in the associated object device, a storage module configured to store intra-group operation data about the object devices, 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 the intra-group operation data.

2. The system according to claim 1, 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 necessary agents to the monitoring/diagnostic apparatuses.

3. The system according to claim 1, further comprising a 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.

4. The system according to claim 1, 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.

5. The system according to claim 4, 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.

6. The system according to claim 1, 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.