STARFIELD DISPLAY OF CONTROL SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC INFORMATION

The operational state of a complex control system, with a number of operating units controlled by a plurality of sensing and input devices, can be dynamically displayed as a starfield. In the starfield, each operating unit is depicted by a separate cluster of stars representing the states of the sensing devices for that operating unit. The position and other display attributes of the stars denote the functional state of the associated device. An archive of starfields is maintained in a storage device with each such starfield depicting the state of the control system for a particular operating condition, such as a specific system error. When an unusual starfield occurs, it can be compared to the archived starfields to determine whether a problem exists and if so determine a solution.