Predicting Remaining Useful Life Based on Hilbert–Huang Entropy with Degradation Model

Abstract

Prognostics health management (PHM) of rotating machinery has become an important process for increasing reliability and reducing machine malfunctions in industry. Bearings are one of the most important equipment parts and are also one of the most common failure points. To assess the degradation of a machine, this paper presents a bearing remaining useful life (RUL) prediction method. The method relies on a novel health indicator and a linear degradation model to predict bearing RUL. The health indicator is extracted by using Hilbert–Huang entropy to process horizontal vibration signals obtained from bearings. We present a linear degradation model to estimate RUL using this health indicator. In the training phase, the degradation detection threshold and the failure threshold of this model are estimated by the distribution of 600 bootstrapped samples. These bootstrapped samples are taken from the six training sets. In the test phase, the health indicator and the model are used to estimate the bearing’s current health state and predict its RUL. This method is suitable for the degradation of bearings. The experimental results show that this method can effectively monitor bearing degradation and predict its RUL.