Systematic data preparation in an automated test diagnostic environment

Military aviation systems utilize multiple data collection systems. Generally these systems are designed to capture specific information in human readable form for direct investigation by subject matter experts and engineers. The data is intended to be scanned for a specific condition, or look for an indicator to solve a specific issue. Interestingly, only a small percentage of the data is ever used. However, as these data stores grow, they incidentally capture information that can be even more valuable. This paper is intended to assist an uninitiated person or team to preparing data collected in an automated test environment for data mining supporting an intelligent system.