Patent ID: 6606580
Filing Date: 2003-08-12
Classification: G05B,G06F,G06Q,G07C

Abstract:
A method for estimating the performance of and/or detecting faults in components of a multi-component system,the performance of each component in the system being defined by one or more performance parameters x, and the performance parameters x being related to measurement parameters z which can be expressed as a function h( ) of the performance parameters x and operating parameters w defining an operating condition of the system, the method comprising: selecting a maximum number Mbias of fault effected measurements, and optimising an objective function J(x,w) that gives a measure of the consistency between measured values of the measurement parameters z collected from the system and calculated values of the measurement parameters calculated using said function of the performance parameters and the operating parameters h(x,w), said optimisation including multiple evaluations of the objective function J(x,w), each time the objective function J(x,w)is evaluated during said optimisation, the method comprising calculating a plurality of possible values for the objective function, each possible value being calculated by determining the objective function with a different Mbias of the measurement parameters eliminated, the value of the minimum one of said plurality of calculated possible values being assigned as the value of the objective function.