Analysis of false alarms during system design

It is noted that the problem of false alarms in electronic monitoring systems has grown over the last decade. This growth has been associated with increasing system complexity and advances in the state of the art. Studies have shown that some systems exhibit as many as 40% or more false pulls, and, associated with the false-alarm problem a large volume of wasted or ineffective maintenance actions exists. The authors explore the answers to the following questions: what is a false alarm? Can the extent of the problem be anticipated by the designer? Can a designer take steps to eliminate or reduce the effects of false alarms? They examine the questions by describing field maintenance data, prediction models, and analytical techniques