Automatically constructing a diagnostics fault model from vehicle engineering documentation

A method of providing a troubleshooting tool for identifying and resolving a system malfunction in a system having a communications network and an electrical network, comprising:

• creating, in a processor, a first mapping of communication system (CS) components, CS messages exchanged by the CS components, and CS signals carried by the messages;
• wherein at least one CS component is an electronic control unit (ECU) and at least one CS component is a communications bus coupling the ECU to additional CS components, further wherein the first mapping defines a plurality of CS symptoms and CS failure modes associated with the CS components, as well as an indication for each CS message of a source CS component that generates the CS message, a recipient CS component that receives the CS message, and each path CS component that the CS message would traverse when communicated by the source CS component to the recipient CS component;
• for the first mapping, the processor generating a plurality of relationship chains connecting each symptom to a source CS component, a recipient CS component, and identifying each path CS component linking the source CS component to a receiving CS component;
• creating a CS diagnostic trouble code (DTC) mapping a plurality of CS DTCs to the relationship chains;
• creating, in the processor, a second mapping of electrical system(ES) components, connections among the ES components, ES signals generated by the ES components for receipt by an ECU, and ES failure modes, ES symptoms, and ES corrective actions for addressing the ES failure modes and their resulting ES symptoms;
• for the second mapping, the processor generating a plurality of linkages associated a plurality of ES DTCs to individual ES symptoms and ES failure modes, and identifying which ECU would receive each ES DTC;
• aligning component names of the first mapping with the second mapping;
• generating, in the processor, a unified mapping of ES DTCs and CS DTCs to ES symptoms, CS symptoms, ES components, and CS components;
• and
• configuring the troubleshooting tool to perform as follows:
• receiving a set of reported error codes;
• using the unified mapping, identifying at least one system malfunction and associating the system malfunction with one or more identified system components;
• and
• reporting to a user the one or more identified system components on which the user may operate to resolve the system malfunction.