A hybrid system for fault detection and sensor fusion based on fuzzy clustering and artificial immune systems

In this study, an efficient new hybrid approach for multiple sensors data fusion and fault detection is presented, addressing the problem with possible multiple faults, which is based on conventional fuzzy soft clustering and artificial immune system (AIS). The proposed hybrid system approach consists of three main phases. In the first phase signal separation is performed using the Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) algorithm. Subsequently a single (fused) signal based on the information provided from the sensor signals is generated by the fusion engine. The information provided from the previous two phases is used for fault detection in the third phase based on the Artificial Immune System (AIS) negative selection mechanism. The simulations and experiments for multiple sensor systems have confirmed the strength of the new approach for online fusing and fault detection. The hybrid system gives a fault tolerance by handling different problems such as noisy sensor signals and multiple faulty sensors. This makes the new hybrid approach attractive for solving such fusion problems and fault detection during real time operations. This hybrid system is extended for early fault detection in complex mechanical systems based on a set of extracted features; these features characterize the collected sensors data. The hybrid system is able to detect the onset of fault conditions which can lead to critical damage or failure. This early detection of failure signs can provide more effective information for any maintenance actions or corrective procedure decisions

Discriminative power of the receptors activated by k-contiguous bits rule

The paper provides a brief introduction into a relatively new discipline: artificial immune systems (AIS). These are computer systems exploiting the natural immune system (or NIS for brevity) metaphor: protect an organism against invaders. Hence, a natural field of applications of AIS is computer security. But the notion of invader can be extended further: for instance a fault occurring in a system disturbs patterns of its regular functioning. Thus fault, or anomaly detection is another field of applications. It is convenient to represent the information about normal and abnormal functioning of a system in binary form (e.g. computer programs/viruses are binary files). Now the problem can be stated as follows: given a set of self patterns representing normal behaviour of a system under considerations find a set of detectors (i.e, antibodies, or more precisely, receptors) identifying all non self strings corresponding to abnormal states of the system. A new algorithm for generating antibody strings is presented. Its interesting property is that it allows to find in advance the number of of strings which cannot be detected by an "ideal" receptors repertoire.Facultad de Informátic

Artificial immune systems

The human immune system has numerous properties that make it ripe for exploitation in the computational domain, such as robustness and fault tolerance, and many different algorithms, collectively termed Artificial Immune Systems (AIS), have been inspired by it. Two generations of AIS are currently in use, with the first generation relying on simplified immune models and the second generation utilising interdisciplinary collaboration to develop a deeper understanding of the immune system and hence produce more complex models. Both generations of algorithms have been successfully applied to a variety of problems, including anomaly detection, pattern recognition, optimisation and robotics. In this chapter an overview of AIS is presented, its evolution is discussed, and it is shown that the diversification of the field is linked to the diversity of the immune system itself, leading to a number of algorithms as opposed to one archetypal system. Two case studies are also presented to help provide insight into the mechanisms of AIS; these are the idiotypic network approach and the Dendritic Cell Algorithm

Immunotronics - novel finite-state-machine architectures with built-in self-test using self-nonself differentiation

A novel approach to hardware fault tolerance is demonstrated that takes inspiration from the human immune system as a method of fault detection. The human immune system is a remarkable system of interacting cells and organs that protect the body from invasion and maintains reliable operation even in the presence of invading bacteria or viruses. This paper seeks to address the field of electronic hardware fault tolerance from an immunological perspective with the aim of showing how novel methods based upon the operation of the immune system can both complement and create new approaches to the development of fault detection mechanisms for reliable hardware systems. In particular, it is shown that by use of partial matching, as prevalent in biological systems, high fault coverage can be achieved with the added advantage of reducing memory requirements. The development of a generic finite-state-machine immunization procedure is discussed that allows any system that can be represented in such a manner to be "immunized" against the occurrence of faulty operation. This is demonstrated by the creation of an immunized decade counter that can detect the presence of faults in real tim

A control-theoretical fault prognostics and accommodation framework for a class of nonlinear discrete-time systems

Fault diagnostics and prognostics schemes (FDP) are necessary for complex industrial systems to prevent unscheduled downtime resulting from component failures. Existing schemes in continuous-time are useful for diagnosing complex industrial systems and no work has been done for prognostics. Therefore, in this dissertation, a systematic design methodology for model-based fault prognostics and accommodation is undertaken for a class of nonlinear discrete-time systems. This design methodology, which does not require any failure data, is introduced in six papers. In Paper I, a fault detection and prediction (FDP) scheme is developed for a class of nonlinear system with state faults by assuming that all the states are measurable. A novel estimator is utilized for detecting a fault. Upon detection, an online approximator in discrete-time (OLAD) and a robust adaptive term are activated online in the estimator wherein the OLAD learns the unknown fault dynamics while the robust adaptive term ensures asymptotic performance guarantee. A novel update law is proposed for tuning the OLAD parameters. Additionally, by using the parameter update law, time to reach an a priori selected failure threshold is derived for prognostics. Subsequently, the FDP scheme is used to estimate the states and detect faults in nonlinear input-output systems in Paper II and to nonlinear discrete-time systems with both state and sensor faults in Paper III. Upon detection, a novel fault isolation estimator is used to identify the faults in Paper IV. It was shown that certain faults can be accommodated via controller reconfiguration in Paper V. Finally, the performance of the FDP framework is demonstrated via Lyapunov stability analysis and experimentally on the Caterpillar hydraulics test-bed in Paper VI by using an artificial immune system as an OLAD --Abstract, page iv

Academic leadership bio-inspired classification model using negative selection algorithm

Negative selection algorithm has been successfully used in several purposes such as in fault detection, data integrity protection, virus detection and etc.due to the unique ability in self-recognition by classifying self or non-self’s detectors. Managing employee’s competency is considered as the top challenge for human resource professional especially in the process to determine the right person for the right job that is based on their competency.As an alternative approach, this article attempts to propose academic leadership bio-inspired classification model using negative selection algorithm to handle this issue.This study consists of three phases; data preparation, model development and model analysis. In the experimental phase, academic leadership competency data were collected from a selected higher learning institution as training data-set based on 10-fold cross validation. Several experiments were carried out by using different set of training and testing data-sets to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed model.As a result, the accuracy of the proposed model is considered excellent for academic leadership classification.For future work, in order to enhance the proposed bio-inspired classification model, a comparative study should be conducted using other established artificial immune system classification algorithms i.e. clonal selection and artificial immune network

Artificial Immune Systems - Models, algorithms and applications

Copyright © 2010 Academic Research Publishing Agency.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) are computational paradigms that belong to the computational intelligence family and are inspired by the biological immune system. During the past decade, they have attracted a lot of interest from researchers aiming to develop immune-based models and techniques to solve complex computational or engineering problems. This work presents a survey of existing AIS models and algorithms with a focus on the last five years.This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fun

"Going back to our roots": second generation biocomputing

Researchers in the field of biocomputing have, for many years, successfully "harvested and exploited" the natural world for inspiration in developing systems that are robust, adaptable and capable of generating novel and even "creative" solutions to human-defined problems. However, in this position paper we argue that the time has now come for a reassessment of how we exploit biology to generate new computational systems. Previous solutions (the "first generation" of biocomputing techniques), whilst reasonably effective, are crude analogues of actual biological systems. We believe that a new, inherently inter-disciplinary approach is needed for the development of the emerging "second generation" of bio-inspired methods. This new modus operandi will require much closer interaction between the engineering and life sciences communities, as well as a bidirectional flow of concepts, applications and expertise. We support our argument by examining, in this new light, three existing areas of biocomputing (genetic programming, artificial immune systems and evolvable hardware), as well as an emerging area (natural genetic engineering) which may provide useful pointers as to the way forward.Comment: Submitted to the International Journal of Unconventional Computin