Importance

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Abstract

A methodology for processing alarms generated within a predetermined system embodies a forward chaining approach to the analysis of alarms. Before an alarm set can be diagnosed, the method includes the steps of: providing a computer database representative of all components of the system capable of faulting and the interconnections between the components; providing rules that relate component faults to generated alarms and to propagation of component faults within the system; determining individual alarm patterns generated by separate faulting of each component of the system; and storing in a computer database individual alarm patterns determined for each component of the system. Thereafter, the method includes preparing each stored alarm pattern with a generated set of alarms and ascertaining those components whose individual alarm patterns are a subset of this set of alarms. A practical real time implementation of the method is obtained by including the steps of: hashing the individual alarm patterns determined for each system component to a binary pattern corresponding to a unique integer number; hashing the set of alarms to be analyzed to a binary representation; and comparing the alarm set binary representation with all binary patterns stored for the system components and ascertaining therefrom all potentially faulted components of the system.

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First Claim