Complex military and industrial systems (machines, aircraft, etc.) experience fault/failure modes that must be diagnosed accurately and rapidly in order to sustain the operational availability of these systems as high as possible. Considerable downtime translates into loss of productivity and increased maintenance costs. In a manufacturing or industrial setting, problems reported by the machine’s internal checks (fault indicator) or an operator alert the maintainer of possible problem areas that must be addressed. Unfortunately, in these situations, the alert or advisory does not offer sufficient information to the maintainer that may permit the accurate and rapid diagnosis of the problem.
This paper introduces a novel reasoning methodology, in combination with appropriate models and measurements (data) to perform accurately and expeditiously expert troubleshooting for complex military and industrial processes. This automated troubleshooting tool is designed to support the maintainer/ repairman by identifying and locating faulty system components. The enabling technologies build upon a Model Based Reasoning paradigm and a Dynamic Case Based Reasoning method acting as the intelligent database. A case study employs a helicopter Intermediate Gearbox as the application domain to illustrate the efficacy of the approach.