Sequential fault occurrence and reconfiguration in system level diagnosis

In a classical system-level diagnosis model, a complex multiprocessor system is characterized to be uniquely diagnosable under the presence of any arbitrary fault set of size up to t. Fault occurrence, however, is usually a sequential process in real-life systems, i.e. multiple faults occur one after another. Any faulty location is immediately diagnosed and the system is reconfigured before any further fault occurs. Systems which are designed under the assumption of sequential fault occurrences and reconfiguration are discussed and their test interconnection assignment for unique diagnosability is characterized. A theorem is developed for sequential k/t-diagnosability, where the system is allowed to have up to t faults but not more than k of them occur at a time. For most practical cases, k has a value of 1. The t-diagnosability theorem is then a special case of this theorem for k=Kt. The results of this theorem are more useful in the design practical systems where the system is reconfigured after every fault is detected and located, and they do not have to satisfy the constraints n>2⩽t