Feedback and feedforward approaches in technical diagnostics

System diagnostics facilitates timely maintenance and assures high reliability of complex machinery. Diagnostic decisions reflect two important factors: current technical status of the operating machinery and the cumulative history of its exposure to adverse operational and environmental conditions. The feedback approach in system diagnostics is aimed at the early detection of incipient failures and implies the analysis of dynamic responses of particular system components to various stimuli and detecting deviations of these responses from the "nominal response". The feedforward approach is based on the compilation of the "history of abuse" of system components, such as abnormal operational regimes, exposure to vibration, excessive temperature, etc.