GRAND CHALLENGES - Automated Diagnostics Automated Diagnostics By Professor George W Irwin Condition monitoring of complex systems involves fault detection, fault diagnosis and fault isolation and is crucial to ensure robust, safe, cost effective and efficient operation. For example, the regulatory authorities impose strict and legally enforceable limits on tailpipe emissions from automotive engines, on the effluents from factories and thermoelectric power stations into the air and into rivers and the sea. Any faults which lead to negative environmental impact attract serious financial penalties. Similarly, in safety critical applications like fly-by-wire aircraft robust and timely condition monitoring is essential. The importance of this technical research area is evidenced by the strength of events like the IFAC Safe Process series, and by the investment made by the EU in this and related topics. The advent of networking technologies imposes new and exciting challenges in the field, whereby previously hard-wired networks of sensors and supervisory computers are being replaced by data networks which can be either wired ( e.g the Internet) or wireless ( e.g ad hoc IEEE 802.11). While this offers clear practical advantages for remove supervision and condition monitoring including lower costs and flexibility in installation and maintenance it introduces additional research challenges in terms of channel uncertainty and time delays, particularly in the case of feedback control systems.