Symbolic simulators for the fault diagnosis of nonlinear analog circuits

Abstract

A new symbolic technique for the realization of simulators for nonlinear analog circuits is presented. The generated simulators work with input/output in numerical form, but they are very efficient due to the use of the symbolic approach. For nonlinear components a PWL (PieceWise Linearization) method is used. The proposed approach permits to obtain libraries of simulators which can be very useful in many application fields. In particular we present a possible application to an expert system devoted to nonlinear circuit fault diagnosis. The program package, realized for this application, is described from both algorithmic and functional points of view. Some simple examples are presented in order to illustrate the main features of the program.