An algorithm for multiple fault diagnosis in analogue circuits

The paper deals with multiple fault diagnosis of analogue AC or DC circuits with limited accessible terminals for excitation and measurement and brings an algorithm for identificating faulty elements and evaluating their parameters. The main achievement is a method enabling us to efficiently identify faulty elements. For this purpose some testing equations are derived playing a key role in identification of possibly faulty elements which are next verified using a test of acceptance. The proposed approach is described in detail for double fault diagnosis. Also extension to triple fault diagnosis is given. Although the method pertains to linear circuits, some aspects of multiple fault diagnosis of non-linear circuits can be also performed using the small signal approach. Two numerical examples illustrate the proposed method and show its efficiency. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.