Aiming at the lack of prior information and the characterization difficulties of unanticipated state detection in the drive systems of astronomical telescope, the paper proposes a Multi-layer General Process Model for the recognition of telescope drive system state. Firstly, based on the prior information of state recognition, this paper refines the classification of anticipated state and unanticipated state. Then, focusing on the comprehensive description of the state of the telescope drive system, a Multi-layer General Process Model for the recognition of unanticipated state is established. Finally, the model is evaluated by using an example of Antarctica Survey Telescope drive system and excellent results have been obtained. The study of unanticipated state is the deepening and upgrading of anticipated, and it is an extension of fault diagnosis technology.