We consider the problem of constructing optimal and near-optimal test sequences for multiple fault diagnosis. The computational complexity of solving the optimal multiple-fault isolation problem is super exponential, that is, it is much more difficult than the single-fault isolation problem, which, by itself, is NP-hard. By employing concepts from information theory and AND/OR graph search and by exploiting the single fault testing strategies of Pattipati et al. (1990), we present several test sequencing algorithms for the multiple fault isolation problem. These algorithms provide a trade-off between the degree of suboptimality and computational complexity. Furthermore, we present novel diagnostic strategies that generate a diagnostic directed graph, instead of a traditional diagnostic tree, for multiple fault diagnosis. Using this approach, the storage complexity of the overall diagnostic strategy reduces substantially. The algorithms developed herein have been successfully applied to several real-world systems.
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