Patent ID: 8660980

Claim:
A monitoring system for determining the condition of an object, comprising: an empirical model operated by at least one processor and having reference data that indicates the normal operational state of the object, and input pattern arrays, each input pattern array having a plurality of time-ordered input vectors, each input vector having input values representing a plurality of parameters indicating the current condition of the object, the reference data being grouped in equal-sized and multi-dimensional training arrays, each of the training arrays being equal in size to a corresponding input multi-dimensional pattern array and each training array including a plurality of time-ordered reference vectors sequenced in time, the empirical model being configured to generate estimate values based on a calculation that uses an input pattern array and the reference data to determine a similarity measure between the input values and the reference data; and a differencing module comparing the estimate values to the corresponding input values so that resulting values from the comparison can be used to determine the condition of the object.