Model-based troubleshooting of complex technical systems using integrated qualitative techniques

Monitoring and diagnosis of safety-critical dynamic systems are challenging tasks for knowledge-based programming. While current control systems usually rely on the total availability and computability of numerical information, they necessarily fail if these assumptions do not hold. As a consequence. Intelligent control systems are needed which have the ability to perform monitoring and diagnosis even if only incomplete or abstract pieces of information are available. Additionally, monitoring and diagnosis have to be integrated into an overall online control cycle in order to apply the concepts to dynamic systems which are characterized by time-varying parameters. An implemented expert system which fulfils these requirements is presented. Research work done in the field of model-based diagnosis of nuclear power plants using qualitative reasoning techniques is given