Abstract

A model-based alarm coordination system coordinates primary and secondary alarm notifications in order to ascertain whether they are caused by a single fault, or multiple faults, in a complex electrical system. The alarm coordination function is part of a larger overall Fault Management Support (FMS) system. The FMS system is a framework that, when combined with object-specific fault management parts, offers uniform fault management functions to managed objects (MOs) within the electrical system. Each MO is viewed as a self-contained, functional unit, and is responsible for its own internal fault management. Therefore, there are no global or centralized fault management functions. Object relation models, based on functional dependencies between objects, are used to automatically solve the alarm coordination problem which arises when a large number of faults are reported in response to a single fault which causes out-of-specification performance in many dependent objects. Little object-specific programming is required.