Remote Diagnostics refers to ability to diagnose a given symptom, issue or problem from a distance. Instead of the subject being colocated with the person or system doing the diagnostics, with remote diagnostics, the subjects can be separated by physical distant (E.g., earth-moon). Information exchange occurs either by wire or wireless.

When limiting to systems, a general accepted definition is: 'To Improve reliability of vital or capital-intensive installations and reduce the maintenance costs by avoiding unplanned maintenance, by monitoring the condition of the system remotely. '

Process elements for remote diagnostics:

• Remotely monitor selected vital system parameters
• Analysis of data to detect trends
• Comparison with known or expected behavior data
• After detected performance degradation, predict the failure moment by extrapolation
• Order parts and/or plan maintenance, to be executed when really necessary, but in time to prevent a failure or stop

Typical uses:

• medical use (see Remote guidance)
• Formula 1 racecars
• space (Apollo project and others)
• Telephone systems like a PABX
• aeroplanes, like 747, Fokker, Airbus and many others.

The reasons for RD can be one of more of these aspects:

• limit local personnel to a minimum (Gemini, Apollo capsules: too tight to fit all technicians)
• limit workload of local personnel
• limit risks (exposure to dangerous environments)
• central expertise (locally solve small problems, remotely/centralized solve complex problems by experts)
• efficiency: reduce travel time to get expert & system or subject together