An incremental retrieval mechanism for case-based electronic fault diagnosis

One problem with using CBR for diagnosis is that a full case description may not be available at the beginning of the diagnosis. The standard CBR methodology requires a detailed case description in order to perform case retrieval and this is often not practical in diagnosis. We describe two fault diagnosis tasks where many features may make up a case description but only a few features are required in an individual diagnosis. We evaluate an incremental CBR mechanism that can initiate case retrieval with a skeletal case description and will elicit extra discriminating information during the diagnostic process.