J. Xu
University of Newcastle upon Tyne. 1994
In the system-level fault diagnosis area, the fundamental problem of characterizing sequentially t-diagnosable systems in the PMC model has remained open for more than two decades. We resolve this problem by providing a complete characterization of such systems. Our solution to the delicate characterization problem leads to the correct identification of optimal sequentially t-diagnosable Dd,k systems. Given a set of n units, an optimal Dd,k system for sequential t-fault diagnosis can be constructed with just n(ë (t + 2) / 3û) tests, rather than n(ë t / 2 û + 1) tests ¾ a previously misjudged bound. An efficient algorithm for sequentially identifying the set of faulty units in a sequentially t-diagnosable Dd,k system is given along the lines of the proposed characterization, which is linear with respect to the number of tests in the system.