Information Interfaces for Process Plant Diagnosis

The paper describes a systematic approach to the design of information interfaces for operator support in diagnosing complex systems faults. The need of interpreting primary measured plant variables within the framework of different system representations organized into an abstraction hierarchy is identified from an analysis of the problem of diagnosing complex systems. A formalized approach to the modelling of production systems, called Multilevel £low Modelling, is described. A MFM model specifies plant control requirements and the associated need for plant information and provide a consistent context for the interpretation of real time plant signals in diagnosis of malfunctions. The use of MFM models as a basis for functional design of the plant instrumentation system is outlined, and the use of Knowledge Based (Expert) Systems for the design of man-machine interfaces is mentioned. Such systems would allow an active user participation in diagnosis and thus provide the basis for cooperative problem solving. INIS Descriptors CONTROL SYSTEMS; DIAGNOSIS; FLOW MODELS; HUMAN FACTORS; INDUSTRIAL PLANTS; INFORMATION; INTERFACES; MAN-MACHINE SYSTEMS; NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS UDC 007.51 : 62-5 : 65.015.11 February 1984 Risø National Laboratory, DK 4000 Roskilde, Denmark Presented at the conference on Data Communication in Distributed Systems, organised by the Danish Automation Society, November 2-3, 1983. ISBN 87-550-0982-4 ISSN 0418-6435