Minimization of ambiguity in parametric fault diagnosis of analog circuits: A complex network approach

Aiming at the problem to locate parametric faults in analog circuits, we propose a novel procedure for minimizing ambiguity of parametric faults in this paper. We first construct a complex network to describe the way in which candidate fault features and the corresponding voltage response interact. And the network constructed is found to follow a scale-free distribution in its node degree. We indicate this topological property of nodes results from the ambiguity of overlapped parametric faults. Through investigating the complex network with power-law distributions, ambiguity minimizing strategies are proposed to reduce redundant fault features and increase effective fault features while improving the overall level of fault diagnosis. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the method of the parametric fault diagnosis in analog circuit. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.