Patent Document ID: 8521487
Application ID: 13041644
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method for generating a set of Analytical Redundancy Relations representing a system with which a plurality of sensors are associated for observation of variables indicative of operating conditions and adapted to enable detection and isolation of faults, the system being describable by a model based on the arrangement of components of said system, including a set of Primary Relations between inputs and outputs of each component, indicative of an operating function thereof, wherein each Analytical Redundancy Relation represents logical relations between a subset of observable variables of the system and a corresponding subset of support components of the system, including: a) generating a complete set of Analytical Redundancy Relations for the system, in implicit form; b) determining an original binary Fault Signature Matrix associated with said complete set of Analytical Redundancy Relations having size m×n where m is a power of the complete set of Analytical Redundancy Relations and n is a number of the system components; c) determining at least one submatrix of said original signature matrix, having a minimal subset of rows of the original matrix such that said submatrix has the same number of non-zero columns and the same number of distinct columns as the original matrix; and d) generating a subset of Analytical Redundancy Relations of said complete set, including the Analytical Redundancy Relations associated to rows of the signature submatrix determined in step (c); wherein the determination of at least one submatrix of the original signature matrix includes the operations of: determining a first matrix M transposed of the original signature matrix, having n rows and m columns; determining a second matrix M 2 having n(n−1)/2 rows and m columns, wherein each row is associated to a distinct pair of rows of the first matrix, and each element of each row is equal to 1 if corresponding elements of an associated pair of rows of the first matrix are distinct, and is equal to 0 otherwise; and determining a minimal linear combination 
 x 1 +. .. +x m complying with constraints 
 M·x≧b and M 2 ·x≧b where x 1. .. , x m are components of a binary vector x=[x 1 , x 2 ,. .. , x m ] T whose dimension corresponds to the number of rows of the original signature matrix and b=[1, 1,. .. , 1] T , b being a vector whose dimension corresponds to the number of columns of the original signature matrix; the submatrix of the original signature matrix being determinable by transposing a matrix which is the product of the first matrix with the binary vector.