Fault diagnosis for complex systems based on reliability analysis and sensors data considering epistemic uncertainty

This paper presents an information fusion method to diagnose system fault based on dynamic fault tree (DFT) analysis and dynamic evidential network (DEN). In the proposed method, firstly, it uses a DFT to describe the dynamic fault characteristics and evaluates the failure rate of components using interval numbers to deal with the epistemic uncertainty. Secondly, qualitative analysis of a DFT is to generate the characteristic function via a traditional zero-suppressed binary decision diagram, while quantitative analysis is to calculate some importance measures by mapping a DFT into a DEN. Thirdly, these reliability results are updated according to sensors data and used to design a novel diagnostic algorithm to optimize system diagnosis. Furthermore, a diagnostic decision tree (DDT) is obtained to guide the maintenance workers to recover the system. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated by applying it to a train-ground wireless communication system. The results of simulation analysis show the feasibility and effectiveness of this methodology