On false alarm mitigation

Condition-based maintenance (CBM) of complex military vehicles or industrial machines presumes the capability to correctly detect faults in components or subsystems. Faults are malfunctions that are observed in the monitoring system. Two types of errors can occur during automated fault detection: (1) missed detections or (2) false alarms. The practical consequence of either type of error is that a failed component may not be replaced when necessary, or alternatively, may be unnecessarily serviced due to a false alarm. In the most catastrophic cases of incorrect fault detection, the outcome may include the loss of an expensive military asset, or human life. The false alarm problem is particularly troublesome for condition based maintenance and prognostics problems where fault signatures necessarily need to be detected at lower levels. Here, we present an overview of some of the vagaries of fault and anomaly detection in the framework of reducing false alarms. New algorithmic approaches to user-controllable false alarm rates are presented, followed by a dose of pragmatism, as real-world false alarm mitigation on a currently-deployed military aircraft is described