JPH02302828A - Diagnostic expert system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate the input of the names of slave parts by using a knowledge base including hierarchical constitution between elements as knowledge, thereby inputting the name of master parts at the time of inputting the parts names of a device to be diagnosed. CONSTITUTION:The knowledge base 10 includes the hierarchical knowledge of various elements constituting a copying machine. A question response part 16 sends input information including action information such as service man's repairment and inspection in addition to the status information from a user such as a failure phenomenon, environment, conditions, reproducibility, frequency, and a detailed place to an inference engine 12. The inference engine 12 executes inference by the input information and the hierarchical knowledge inputted from the knowledge base 10 through an internal interface 14. Then the inference engine 12 outputs a response from an external interface 18 through the question responding part 16 and stores the input information and a rule obtained from inference in the knowledge base 10 through the internal interface 14 to use the rule in the succeeding inference. Consequently, user's load for the information input can be reduced.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a diagnostic expert system that has specialized knowledge and performs failure diagnosis of a device to be diagnosed based on input information.

[Prior Art] Conventionally, a diagnostic expert system performs a diagnosis based on knowledge of a device to be diagnosed obtained from an expert and input information from a user. Specifically, when using this type of diagnostic expert system to diagnose the failure of a copying machine, for example, conventionally, the user has provided information such as the failure phenomenon, environment, conditions, reproducibility, failure frequency, and suspect range. The state information such as the detailed location of the computer is input manually, and inference is started according to this input information and an answer is output. Based on this answer, a service muff or the like takes some action on the equipment to be diagnosed, and when that action (i.e., behavior information) is input again, this is used to diagnose the cause of the failure in a conventional diagnostic expert system. It is.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] However, in conventional diagnostic expert systems, if a service person has already repaired a predetermined part of the copier to be diagnosed, it is difficult to make inferences using behavioral information. However, when inputting this behavioral information and accompanying failure candidate locations, it is necessary to input behavioral information for each of the numerous parts included in all failure candidate locations. The disadvantage is that it has to be done. The present invention eliminates this drawback and uses knowledge about the structure of the device to be diagnosed, and when a fault candidate location has a higher-order part that includes multiple lower-order parts, the present invention solves the problem by answering questions that include the upper-order part and The purpose of the present invention is to provide a diagnostic expert system that outputs answers containing the following information and reduces the burden of information input on the user.

[Means for Solving the Problems] According to the present invention, when a first element constituting a diagnosis target is related to a plurality of second elements, the hierarchical structure between the first and second elements is a knowledge base included as knowledge, a question-and-answer means for asking a user a question and inputting an answer from the user regarding the failure diagnosis of the diagnosis target, and the input answer from the user and the knowledge base. an inference means for inferring and outputting a diagnosis result based on the knowledge of the first element;
The above inference is made regarding the elements of .

[Operation] According to the present invention, since the knowledge base has knowledge of the hierarchical structure regarding the constituent elements of the diagnosis target device, the inference means performs inference on the input of information including the upper first element,
A result including a plurality of subordinate second elements can be output.

[Example] Next, an example of the diagnostic expert system according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the diagnostic expert system of the present invention. When the diagnostic expert system 1 receives a question based on a higher-order element, it outputs an answer that includes a plurality of lower-order elements. For example, when the expert system l is an expert system for diagnosing the failure of a copying machine, the knowledge base 10 includes hierarchical knowledge of various elements constituting the copying machine, as shown in FIG. I'm here. That is, the main body and peripheral devices, which are elements of an upper hierarchy, are composed of units, which are elements of a lower hierarchy, such as a cleaning unit, a phenomenon unit, a charging unit, an ADF, and a sorter. When these units are considered as upper-level elements, the unit is composed of multiple parts that are lower-level elements, such as cleaning blades,
It consists of a cleaning doctor and the like. The external interface 18 converts the question input by the user into an interface within the system and transmits it to the question and answer section 16.

The question-and-answer section 18 receives input information from the user, including not only status information such as failure phenomenon, environment, conditions, reproducibility/frequency, and detailed location, but also behavior information such as repairs and inspections by service personnel, to the inference engine 12. Send to. Inference engine 12
performs inference based on input information and hierarchical knowledge input from the knowledge base 10 via the internal interface 14. Then, the answer is outputted from the external interface 18 via the question-and-answer section 1B, and the input information and rules obtained from the inference are stored in the knowledge base 10 via the internal interface 14. This rule is the following B
Used for the first theory.

Next, the operation of this system will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, the failure phenomenon of the copier to be diagnosed,
For example, a phenomenon such as streaks appearing on copy paper is input (step 100). Next, action information that has already been performed, such as inspection, adjustment, and replacement parts, including the name of the unit, is input (step 102). Furthermore, enter environmental conditions such as room temperature and the presence or absence of surrounding noise generating devices (step 104), B5. A4. types of trays such as
Use conditions such as single-sided or double-sided copying are manually set (step 106). Next, enter information about the failure condition, such as failure reproducibility, usage frequency, and image condition details (Step 1).
08). Based on this input information, the system 1 performs inference processing and outputs an answer (step 110).

In inputting the behavior information in the inference processing (step 1θ2) as described above, the names of the many parts or units that have been inspected, adjusted and replaced, and the names of upper-level elements such as peripheral devices and main body cleaning units as illustrated in Fig. 3 are input. By inputting the names of many parts and units, it is possible to omit inputting the names of many parts and units.

Although the present embodiment uses a diagnostic expert system for a copying machine as an example, the present invention is of course not limited to this, and can be applied to a diagnostic expert system for other general devices.

[Effects of the Invention] ′ According to the present invention, when inputting the component names of the device to be diagnosed into the diagnostic expert system, by using the names of higher-level components, it is no longer necessary to input the names of lower-level components, making diagnosis easier. The associated information input can be made more efficient.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a functional block diagram showing an embodiment of the diagnostic expert system of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram showing the knowledge structure of the knowledge base in the system shown in Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a diagram showing the knowledge structure of the knowledge base in the system shown in Fig. 1. It is a flow diagram showing operation. Explanation of symbols of main parts...Diagnostic expert system 10...Knowledge base 12...Inference engine 14...Internal interface 16...Question and answer section 18...External interface

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] When a first element constituting a diagnosis target is related to a plurality of second elements, a knowledge base including a hierarchical structure between the first and second elements as knowledge, and the diagnosis A question-and-answer means for asking a user a question regarding a target failure diagnosis and inputting an answer from the user; and an inference for inferring and outputting a diagnosis result based on the inputted answer from the user and the knowledge of the knowledge base. A diagnostic expert system, comprising means for making the inference regarding the second element when information regarding the first element is input.