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Preface
The work presented in this Master’s Thesis is a small step to complex medical systems that do not
need any service, because these systems diagnose and repair themselves. Automated fault diagnosis
is an interesting field to business, as well as an instructive topic for engineers. This thesis is written
in completion of my Master’s program Computer Science at Delft University of Technology (TUD),
in the group Software Engineering. The work is carried out at Philips Medical Systems (PMS), a
leading producer and supplier of medical equipment. The business unit where I worked is called
Cardio-Vascular, and is responsible for the development, sales, and service of Cardio-Vascular X-
Ray systems. These systems allow doctors to successfully help people with cardiac and vascular
diseases. Earlier, doing a graduation project at a company that does such good work, was simply
just a daydream. Now, I find myself concluding it. I would like to thank Philips Medical Systems,
and Ben Minderhoud in particular, for giving me that opportunity.
Although, a graduation assignment is mainly individual effort, many people have contributed
to the success of this project. First of all, I would like to thank anybody who has been part in
achieving this goal. Special thanks go to my company supervisor, Ben Minderhoud (PMS), and
university supervisor, Hans-Gerhard Gross (TUD), for all constructive feedback. Not in the last
place, the important role of Arjan van Gemund (TUD) in this project, as well as his supervision in
an independent, but very instructive preceding research assignment, is gratefully acknowledged. I
also would like to thank Alex Feldman, Jurryt Pietersma and Wei Zhang - my fellow members in
the LYDIA project - for all support on the LYDIA tool set. Furthermore, I would like to thank all
colleagues at Philips Medical Systems that spend time listening to me, giving me fruitful feedback,
or cleared my mind with social talk. I would like to name Frank Spronck in particular, to thank him
for our time in which we injected ’real’ faults in a test system.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, all my friends and fellow students for being part of my
life during the last years.
W.M. Lindhoud
Best, the Netherlands
June 27, 2006
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