Patent ID: 8410952

Claim:
A method for processing data in a computing apparatus and signaling a forewarning of a failure of a physical structure, the method comprising: acquiring data for each one of a plurality of channels of axis data provided by at least one sensor that incorporates a multi-axis accelerometer that is mounted on the physical structure; computing process-indicative data, which is mechanical power data (P), from the multi-axial accelerometer data; acquiring a plurality of sets of the process-indicative data; computing a composite measure of dissimilarity (C i ) from normalized measures of dissimilarity (U) for distribution functions derived from a phase space for the plurality of sets of process-indicative data; determining a forewarning threshold based on the composite measure (C i ) exceeding a straight line fit by more than a preselected number of standard deviations; and in response to the composite measure (C 1 ) exceeding a forewarning threshold over a preselected number of occurrences, providing a forewarning signal to a human observer, through one or more of a visual signal, an audible signal and a tangible signal.