AIRCRAFT FAULT IDENTIFICATION AND DIAGNOSIS USING AN EXPERT SYSTEM: A CASE STUDY

Artificial intelligence (Al) technology is widely suggested for systematic diagnosis of faults where the amount of well-defined diagnosis knowledge is vast and the sequence of steps required to identify the fault is very long. This paper addresses the practical use of Expert System (ES) for aircraft fault identification and diagnosis. A prototype Expert System has been developed using Microsoft Windows® based K-Vision® software, a freely available expert system development tool and run on a PC. The heart of the ES i.e., the knowledge base has been developed from interviewing the experts, existing aircraft manuals and maintenance history. It has been demonstrated that expert systems can be employed effectively for aircraft fault identification and diagnosis as well as for any other problem area. The result of this development is expected to introduce a systematic and intelligent method in aircraft fault identification and diagnosis and also act as a tutor for inexperienced aircraft technicians and engineers. The paper gives brief theory of the Expert Systems and then a demonstration of the software is presented.