Fault diagnosis of continuous systems using discrete-event methods

Fault diagnosis is crucial for ensuring the safe operation of complex engineering systems. Although discrete- event diagnosis methods are used extensively, they do not easily apply to parametric fault isolation in systems with complex continuous dynamics. This paper presents a novel discrete- event system diagnosis approach for abrupt parametric faults in continuous systems that is based on a qualitative abstraction of measurement deviations from the nominal behavior. Our approach systematically generates a diagnosis model from bond graphs that is used to analyze system diagnosability and derive the discrete-event diagnoser. The proposed approach is applied to an electrical power system diagnostic testbed.