Intelligent Systems for Engineers and Scientists, 3rd Edition

Chapter 11

Systems for Interpretation and Diagnosis

11.1 Introduction

Diagnosis is the process of determining the nature of a fault or malfunction, based on a set of symptoms. Input data, that is, the symptoms, are interpreted and the underlying cause of these symptoms is the output. Diagnosis is, therefore, a special case of the more general problem of interpretation. There are many circumstances in which we may wish to interpret data, other than diagnosing problems. Examples include the interpretation of images (e.g., optical, x-ray, ultrasonic, electron microscopic), meters, gauges, and statistical data (e.g., from surveys of people or from a radiation counter). This chapter will examine some of the intelligent systems techniques that are ...