Assisting failure diagnosis in a system
AssigneeBAE SYSTEMS plc
InventorRichard Lee Bovey
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of assisting failure diagnosis in a system includes obtaining data including a probabilistic Bayesian Network describing a set of failures, a set of symptoms and probabilities of at least some of the symptoms being associated with at least some of the failures in a system. A cost value representing a cost associated with learning of a presence or absence of the symptom is obtained for at least some of the symptoms, as well as a plurality of information values, e.g. values representing measures of information gained by learning of the presence or absence of the symptom in relation to a respective plurality of the failures, associated with the symptom. The method then computes an information-for-cost value for the symptom based on the cost value and the plurality of information values.
Claims6
A method for diagnosing failure in a structure having plurality of components, the method comprising:
- the observation of one or more symptoms associated with failure in the structure:
- receiving data in respect of the observed symptom(s), the data further including a probabilistic Bayesian Network describing a set of component failures and a set of symptoms;
- and
- for each of at least some unobserved symptoms of the set of symptoms:
- obtaining a cost value representing a cost associated with learning of a presence or absence of the symptom;
- obtaining one or more information values associated with the symptom;
- the method further comprising:
- determining which symptom among the at least some unobserved symptoms that would be most beneficial to inspect by computing an information-for-cost value based on the cost values, and information values, the information values representing measures of information gained by learning of presence or absence of a respective symptom in relation to a respective plurality of component failures associated with the
- respective symptom, and wherein the computing the information-for-cost value includes:
- summing the information values of said respective symptom to provide a sum;
- dividing the sum by the cost value of the respective symptom;
- identifying, the respective unobserved symptom to be inspected based on the determination;
- and
- inspecting the respective unobserved symptom in the structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.