Characterization and design of sequentially t-diagnosable systems

In the system-level diagnosis area, F.P. Preparata, G. Metze, and R.T. Chien (1967) first presented a formal graph-theoretic model and introduced the concept of sequentially t-diagnosable systems. A system S is called sequentially t-diagnosable if, given any complete collection of test results, at least one faulty unit in S can be identified, provided the number of faulty units does not exceed t. However, until very recently, developing a characterization theorem of sequentially t-diagnosable systems for the PMC model was still an important, open problem. The authors resolve this problem by presenting the first complete characterization. A canonical class of systems, D/sub 1,k/ systems, is discussed, and a valuable result on the sequential t-diagnosability is obtained.<>