Monitoring of complex systems

Conventional measurement systems segregated parameters into well defined none overlapping domains. These parameter specific measurements, often of prime importance to the researcher striving to define a detail of a process, sometimes ignore the complex interrelationships of parameters within a system. This necessary but artificial isolation of parameters ignores the complexity of the conditions under which the measurement is being attempted. When interrelations appear in the measurement they are normally seen as a source of error and dealt with through appropriate compensation methods rather than accepting that there is an interrelation and exploiting the potential information that it might provide. There are methodologies which are being developed to deal with complexity in systems and some of these are being applied to problems in Science and Engineering. A method called Chromaticity, which evolved from dealing with the complexity of measurements on transient electrical arcs, has been applied successfully to a number of complex conditions. The methodology permits overlap between sensor domains and it is this overlap that can detect emergent features within complex systems.