A novel approach to integrating case-based reasoning with model-based diagnosis is presented. The main idea is to use the model of the device and the results of diagnostic tests to index and match cases representing past diagnostic situations with the current one. The initial diagnostic methodology is presented as well as the problems encountered while applying this methodology to two real-world devices. The incorporation of a case-based reasoning system is then motivated and described in detail. Experimental results show the effectiveness of both the indexing schema and the matching algorithm. The paper also discusses how and why these results can be generalized to a multiple fault situation, to other types of device models and to other applications in the field of artificial intelligence.
Michel P. Féret, Janice I. Glasgow