HIERARCHICAL DISTRIBUTED KNOWLEDGE BASED MACHINE INITIATED MAINTENANCE SYSTEM

摘要

The hierarchical distributed knowledge based system functions in a machine initiated maintenance environment to provide efficient and timely maintenance of customer equipment (40-42). The hierarchical, distributed knowledge based system provides the failure evaluation function through the use of an expert or knowledge based system (11) that is installed in the customer equipment (40). This knowledge based system (11) identifies the occurrence of a failure within the customer equipment (40) and functions using its rules, hypotheses and collected data to isolate the source of the error in the customer equipment (40) and, whenever possible, ''fence'' or isolate the failed field replaceable unit that has caused the error. A significant additional attribute of this system is the provision of at least one more level (1, 30) of knowledged based system to provide a more global failure evaluation capability.