Diagnosability of discrete event systems and its applications to circuit testing

As man-made systems become more and more complex, diagnostics of component failures is no longer an easy task that can be performed based on experience and intuition. Therefore, it is important to develop a systematic approach to diagnostic problems. Diagnostics can be done either on-line or off-line. By on-line diagnostics, we mean diagnostics performed while the system to be diagnosed is in normal operation. On the other hand, in off-line diagnostics, the system is not in normal operation. We mainly study off-line diagnostics in this paper. We also introduce the concept of diagnosability and study its properties, all in the framework of discrete event systems. This study is motivated by diagnostic problems in the automotive industry and we emphasize its applications.<>