Intermittent fault detection and reasoning

A system for diagnostic reasoning of faults appearing in a vehicle health monitoring system (VHM), comprising:

• a diagnostic reasoner module in communication with a vehicle, wherein the diagnostic reasoner module is adapted for:
• identifying alternatively one of a signal or a fault state change based on an input, and
• if a signal is identified, querying if the signal indicts a failure mode, wherein if the signal indicts the failure mode:
• setting an intermittent watch flag for the failure mode,
• incrementing a count representing a number of occurrences of the signal as an intermittent fault,
• determining if the count exceeds a predetermined threshold, and
• if the count exceeds the predetermined threshold, determining the intermittent fault to be a permanent fault.

A computer program product for diagnostic reasoning of faults appearing in a vehicle health monitoring system (VHM), the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code portions stored therein, the computer-readable program code portions comprising:

• a first executable portion for identifying alternatively one of a signal or a fault state change based on an input;
• and
• a second executable portion for if a signal is identified, querying if the signal indicts a failure mode, wherein if the signal indicts the failure mode:
• setting an intermittent watch flag for the failure mode,
• incrementing a count representing a number of occurrences of the signal as an intermittent fault,
• determining if the count exceeds a predetermined threshold, and
• if the count exceeds the predetermined threshold, determining the intermittent fault to be a permanent fault.