Failure Prognosis and Applications-A Survey of Recent Literature

Fault diagnosis and prognosis are some of the most crucial functionalities in complex and safety-critical engineering systems, and particularly fault diagnosis, has been a subject of intensive research in the past four decades. Such capabilities allow for detection and isolation of early developing faults as well as prediction of fault propagation, which can allow for preventive maintenance, or even serve as a countermeasure to the possibility of catastrophic incidence as a result of a failure. Following a short preliminary overview and definitions, this article provides a survey of recent research on fault prognosis. Additionally, we report on some of the significant application domains where prognosis techniques are employed. Finally, some potential directions for future research are outlined.