Remote diagnosis server

Abstract

A network-based diagnosis server for monitoring and diagnosing a system, the server being remote from the system it is observing, comprises a sensor for generating signals indicative of a characteristic of a component of the system, a network-interfaced sensor agent coupled to the sensor for receiving signals therefrom, a broker module coupled to the network for sending signals to and receiving signals from the sensor agent, a handler application connected to the broker module for transmitting signals to and receiving signals therefrom, a reasoner application in communication with the handler application for processing, and responding to signals received from the handler application, wherein the sensor agent, broker module, handler application, and reasoner applications operate simultaneously relative to each other, such that the present invention diagnosis server performs continuous monitoring and diagnosing of said components of the system in real time. The diagnosis server is readily adaptable to various different systems.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 273,906 filed on Mar. 7, 2001 entitled Remote Diagnosis Server by Deb et al. Said provisional patent application is incorporated herein by reference.[0002] This invention was made with United States Government support under contract number NAS2-99049 awarded by NASA. The United States Government has certain rights in the invention.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0003] The present invention relates to monitoring framework, and more specifically to a distributed diagnosis architecture for remote monitoring, diagnosis, and maintenance of systems having multiple components, each component having sensors for monitoring and generating signals indicative of a characteristic of the component. BACKGROUND [0004] High rise buildings, nuclear power plants, manufacturing facilities, etc. generally employ a plurality of highly connected network enabled systems. For example, heating and a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] One advantage of the invention is to reduce system down time by providing continuous and automatic analysis of the performance of individual components of the system being monitored and to identify and isolate faulty parts immediately upon failure, or before failure, enabling maintenance personnel to reduce or eliminate time spent troubleshooting failures in the system.

Problems solved by technology

Often, the structure, facility or larger systems lack the capability of monitoring the various systems and subsystems employed thereby.

However, many of these type of systems, or components thereof, as well as others, are usually not monitored and maintained remotely over a network.

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