Automatic programming methodologies for electronic hardware fault monitoring

This paper presents three variants of Genetic Programming (GP) approaches for intelligent online performance monitoring of electronic circuits and systems. Reliability modeling of electronic circuits can be best performed by the Stressor - susceptibility interaction model. A circuit or a system is considered to be failed once the stressor has exceeded the susceptibility limits. For on-line prediction, validated stressor vectors may be obtained by direct measurements or sensors, which after pre-processing and standardization are fed into the GP models. Empirical results are compared with artificial neural networks trained using backpropagation algorithm and classification and regression trees. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing the experiment results with the actual failure model values. The developed model reveals that GP could play an important role for future fault monitoring systems.This research was supported by the International Joint Research Grant of the IITA (Institute of Information Technology Assessment) foreign professor invitation program of the MIC (Ministry of Information and Communication), Korea

Time-efficient fault detection and diagnosis system for analog circuits

Time-efficient fault analysis and diagnosis of analog circuits are the most important prerequisites to achieve online health monitoring of electronic equipments, which are involving continuing challenges of ultra-large-scale integration, component tolerance, limited test points but multiple faults. This work reports an FPGA (field programmable gate array)-based analog fault diagnostic system by applying two-dimensional information fusion, two-port network analysis and interval math theory. The proposed system has three advantages over traditional ones. First, it possesses high processing speed and smart circuit size as the embedded algorithms execute parallel on FPGA. Second, the hardware structure has a good compatibility with other diagnostic algorithms. Third, the equipped Ethernet interface enhances its flexibility for remote monitoring and controlling. The experimental results obtained from two realistic example circuits indicate that the proposed methodology had yielded competitive performance in both diagnosis accuracy and time-effectiveness, with about 96% accuracy while within 60 ms computational time.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Memory and information processing in neuromorphic systems

A striking difference between brain-inspired neuromorphic processors and current von Neumann processors architectures is the way in which memory and processing is organized. As Information and Communication Technologies continue to address the need for increased computational power through the increase of cores within a digital processor, neuromorphic engineers and scientists can complement this need by building processor architectures where memory is distributed with the processing. In this paper we present a survey of brain-inspired processor architectures that support models of cortical networks and deep neural networks. These architectures range from serial clocked implementations of multi-neuron systems to massively parallel asynchronous ones and from purely digital systems to mixed analog/digital systems which implement more biological-like models of neurons and synapses together with a suite of adaptation and learning mechanisms analogous to the ones found in biological nervous systems. We describe the advantages of the different approaches being pursued and present the challenges that need to be addressed for building artificial neural processing systems that can display the richness of behaviors seen in biological systems.Comment: Submitted to Proceedings of IEEE, review of recently proposed neuromorphic computing platforms and system

Analog circuit fault diagnosis via FOA-LSSVM

At present, the research on fault detection and diagnosis technology is very significant to improve the reliability of the equipment, which can greatly improve the safety and efficiency of the equipment. This paper proposes a new fault detection and diagnosis means based on the FOA-LSSVM algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm is effective for the detection and diagnosis of analog circuit faults. In addition, the model also demonstrate good generalization ability

Intrinsically Evolvable Artificial Neural Networks

Dedicated hardware implementations of neural networks promise to provide faster, lower power operation when compared to software implementations executing on processors. Unfortunately, most custom hardware implementations do not support intrinsic training of these networks on-chip. The training is typically done using offline software simulations and the obtained network is synthesized and targeted to the hardware offline. The FPGA design presented here facilitates on-chip intrinsic training of artificial neural networks. Block-based neural networks (BbNN), the type of artificial neural networks implemented here, are grid-based networks neuron blocks. These networks are trained using genetic algorithms to simultaneously optimize the network structure and the internal synaptic parameters. The design supports online structure and parameter updates, and is an intrinsically evolvable BbNN platform supporting functional-level hardware evolution. Functional-level evolvable hardware (EHW) uses evolutionary algorithms to evolve interconnections and internal parameters of functional modules in reconfigurable computing systems such as FPGAs. Functional modules can be any hardware modules such as multipliers, adders, and trigonometric functions. In the implementation presented, the functional module is a neuron block. The designed platform is suitable for applications in dynamic environments, and can be adapted and retrained online. The online training capability has been demonstrated using a case study. A performance characterization model for RC implementations of BbNNs has also been presented

AI and OR in management of operations: history and trends

The last decade has seen a considerable growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for operations management with the aim of finding solutions to problems that are increasing in complexity and scale. This paper begins by setting the context for the survey through a historical perspective of OR and AI. An extensive survey of applications of AI techniques for operations management, covering a total of over 1200 papers published from 1995 to 2004 is then presented. The survey utilizes Elsevier's ScienceDirect database as a source. Hence, the survey may not cover all the relevant journals but includes a sufficiently wide range of publications to make it representative of the research in the field. The papers are categorized into four areas of operations management: (a) design, (b) scheduling, (c) process planning and control and (d) quality, maintenance and fault diagnosis. Each of the four areas is categorized in terms of the AI techniques used: genetic algorithms, case-based reasoning, knowledge-based systems, fuzzy logic and hybrid techniques. The trends over the last decade are identified, discussed with respect to expected trends and directions for future work suggested