Faulty Samples Research Articles

Augmented Deep Transfer Learning for SRP Condition Monitoring via Physically-Informed WGAN-GP Approach

Abstract Traditional dynamometer card sensors are costly and complex, making them unsuitable for real-time sucker rod pumping (SRP) well diagnostics. Recently, SRP diagnosis models using motor power curves offer an alternative, but irregular power curves and limited labeled data present challenges. To address this, we propose a deep transfer model enhanced by Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network with Gradient Penalty (WGAN-GP) data augmentation. First, a physics-driven model reconstructs polished rod torque from motor power, emphasizing fault features. Second, WGAN-GP generates faulty SRP torque-displacement samples to expand training data. Finally, a fully parameter-tuned deep transfer SRP diagnosis framework is established, which improves the automatic learning of advanced fault features and enhances diagnostic accuracy using the augmented dataset. Experiments confirm the model's superior performance and generalization.

Enhancing underwater thruster anomaly detection with support vector glow encoding description

As the driving system of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), the healthy operation of underwater thrusters is crucial to ensure the performance of AUVs. Due to the challenge of obtaining faulty samples during normal operation, anomaly detection of underwater thrusters is often carried out using only normal samples. To address this, Support Vector Glow Encoding Description (SVGED) is proposed for anomaly detection of underwater thrusters trained with only normal samples. Specifically, the deep features of the operational vibration signals collected from the underwater thruster are extracted by a deep convolutional autoencoder based on a glow model. The glow-encoded data are then used to identify the boundary of normal operation for the underwater thruster. When a new sample enters the trained SVGED model, it can be effectively identified as representing a normal or anomalous condition of the underwater thruster. The developed SVGED was evaluated using AUV experiments. When using the proposed SVGED method, the accuracy reaches 99.81%, Results show that the proposed method can effectively real time detect anomalies in the underwater thruster compared to other methods. It lays the foundation for ensuring the healthy operation of AUVs.

A rolling bearing fault diagnosis method for imbalanced data based on multi-scale self-attention mechanism and novel loss function

Deep learning methods are widely used in the field of rolling bearing fault diagnosis and produce good results when faced with datasets with roughly equal numbers of normal and faulty samples. However, real-world data often has a serious imbalance, with the number of fault samples being significantly less than the number of normal samples. This dataset imbalance challenges the performance of traditional deep learning methods. To address this problem, this paper proposes an efficient imbalanced data rolling bearing fault diagnosis method. The method consists of two parts: a deep learning network based on a multi-scale self-attention mechanism and a novel loss function. In terms of the deep learning network, firstly, the one-dimensional vibration signal is converted into a two-dimensional image through the Gramian angular field. This conversion maximises the inherent feature extraction capability of the network. Subsequently, the multi-scale learning capability of the network is enhanced by implementing different expansion rates for the head of the multi-scale self-attention mechanism. This nuanced approach allows the network to capture the underlying information more efficiently. Finally, the inclusion of Ghost bottlenecks and feature pyramid networks (FPNs) helps to optimise network efficiency and improve generalisation performance. A novel loss function is also proposed to make the method more suitable for imbalanced data. During the training process, the classification of samples in each class is analysed using the recall metric of imbalanced classification and the real-time recall is used as a weight to weaken the dominance of the majority class. This weighting ensures the adaptability of the method to imbalanced datasets. The proposed method is evaluated using rolling bearing datasets from Case Western Reserve University, USA, and Southeast University, China. Comparison results with other state-of-the-art deep learning methods show that the proposed method has a robust performance when dealing with imbalanced data.

Research on an aeroengine bearing fault diagnosis method based on WMSST-CNN-BKA-LSSVM

Abstract To effectively extract the fault feature from small sample datasets and improve the accuracy of the model, an aeroengine bearing fault diagnosis method is proposed in this research based on wavelet multi-synchrosqueezed transform-convolutional neural network-black-winged kite algorithm-least squares support vector machine (WMSST-CNN-BKA-LSSVM). WMSST was used to perform modal decomposition on the collected fault data to obtain the time-frequency images. The time-frequency images were input into CNN for fault data feature extraction. The results of the CNN fully connected layer were used as input to the LSSVM, and the BKA was used to optimize the key parameters of the LSSVM to classify aeroengine bearing faults. The method was verified by aeroengine bearing test data from the Harbin Institute of Technology. The research showed that the accuracy is 99.86% when the faulty test samples are 70%, and the accuracy is 93.90% when the faulty samples are 30%. The accuracy showed the applicability of this method in small sample fault diagnosis. By comparing the method with a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) and the convolutional neural network - long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM), it is found that the accuracy has been dramatically improved.

A Bearing Fault Diagnosis Method in Scenarios of Imbalanced Samples and Insufficient Labeled Samples

In practical working environments, rolling bearings are one of the components that are prone to failure. Their vibration signal samples are faced with challenges, mainly including the imbalance between normal and fault samples as well as an insufficient number of labeled samples. This study proposes a sample-expansion method based on generative adversarial networks (GANs) and a fault diagnosis method based on a transformer to solve the above issues. First, selective kernel networks (SKNets) and a genetic algorithm (GA) were introduced to construct a conditional variational autoencoder–evolutionary generative adversarial network with a selective kernel (CVAE-SKEGAN) to achieve a balance between the proportion of normal and faulty samples. Then, a semi-supervised learning–variational convolutional Swin transformer (SSL-VCST) network was built for the fault classification, specifically introducing variational attention and semi-supervised mechanisms to reduce the overfitting risk of the model and solve the problem of a shortage of labeled samples. Three typical operating conditions were designed for the multi-case applicability verification. The results show that the method proposed in this study had good application effects when solving both sample imbalances and labeled-sample deficiencies and improved the accuracy of fault diagnosis in the above scenarios.

Research on Small Sample Rolling Bearing Fault Diagnosis Method Based on Mixed Signal Processing Technology

The diagnosis of bearing faults is a crucial aspect of ensuring the optimal functioning of mechanical equipment. However, in practice, the use of small samples and variable operating conditions may result in suboptimal generalization performance, reduced accuracy, and overfitting for these methods. To address this challenge, this study proposes a bearing fault diagnosis method based on a symmetric two-stream convolutional neural network (CNN). The method employs hybrid signal processing techniques to address the issue of limited data. The method employs a symmetric parallel convolutional neural network (CNN) for the analysis of bearing data. Initially, the data are transformed into time–frequency maps through the utilization of the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and the simultaneous compressed wavelet transform (SCWT). Subsequently, two sets of one-dimensional vectors are generated by reconstructing the high-resolution features of the faulty samples using a symmetric parallel convolutional neural network (CNN). Feature splicing and fusion are then performed to generate bearing fault diagnosis information and assist fault classification. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed mixed-signal processing method is effective on small-sample datasets, and verify the feasibility and generality of the symmetric parallel CNN-support vector machine (SVM) model for bearing fault diagnosis under small-sample conditions.

A reference learning network for fault diagnosis of rotating machinery under strong noise

The strong noise often masks the fault characteristics of equipment, which reduces the accuracy of fault diagnosis and even leads to the inability of intelligent fault diagnosis algorithms to be applied in industrial environments. This has always been a challenge in the field of mechanical fault diagnosis. As known that equipment failure results from the continuous degradation of the equipment’s state, with the failure state evolving from the healthy state. Considering that both healthy signals and fault signals contain similar noise, this paper proposes a Reference Learning Network (RLNet) model. The model aims to enhance the distinguishing features between healthy and faulty samples through reference units, thereby eliminating the influence of noise on feature distribution. Firstly, the impact of variable speed on the model’s robustness is mitigated using the computed order tracking method. Then, the difference features between healthy samples and a class of fault samples are extracted through the binary classification reference learning unit (RLU). Next, the extracted differential features are used to train the state classifier. Finally, membership weights are employed to effectively combine the feature recognition results, reducing the influence of fault features from mismatched RLUs. The robustness and superiority of the proposed method were verified by comparing it with five other intelligent fault diagnosis methods on the gear and bearing datasets. RLNet is of great significance for the engineering application of intelligent fault diagnosis methods in industrial noise environments.

Self-adaptive selection graph pooling based fault diagnosis method under few samples and noisy environment

Neural network (NN)-based methods are extensively used for intelligent fault diagnosis in industrial systems. Nevertheless, due to the limited availability of faulty samples and the presence of noise interference, most existing NN-based methods perform limited diagnosis performance. In response to these challenges, a self-adaptive selection graph pooling method is proposed. Firstly, graph encoders with sharing parameters are designed to extract local structure-feature information (SFI) of multiple sensor-wise sub-graphs. Then, the temporal continuity of the SFI is maintained through time-by-time concatenation, resulting in a global sensor graph and reducing the dependency on data volume from the perspective of adding prior knowledge. Subsequently, leveraging a self-adaptive node selection mechanism, the noise interference of redundant and noisy sensor-wise nodes in the graph is alleviated, allowing the networks to concentrate on the fault-attention nodes. Finally, the local max pooling and global mean pooling of the node-selection graph are incorporated in the readout module to get the multi-scale graph features, which serve as input to a multi-layer perceptron for fault diagnosis. Two experimental studies involving different mechanical and electrical systems demonstrate that the proposed method not only achieves superior diagnosis performance with limited data, but also maintains strong anti-interference ability in noisy environments. Additionally, it exhibits good interpretability through the proposed self-adaptive node selection mechanism and visualization methods.

An oversampling method based on Gaussian Mixture Model for multi-bolt looseness monitoring using Lamb waves`

The imbalance in the number of healthy and faulty samples poses a significant hindrance to the successful implementation of multi-bolt looseness monitoring and fault classification in engineering applications. The Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) is widely used in addressing data imbalance issues. However, traditional SMOTE methods and their improvements have not taken into account the problem of sensor network signals with multiple paths. In this paper, an improved oversampling technique, namely Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)-SMOTE, is introduced. The proposed SMOTE method is based on GMM and aims to solve the sample imbalance problem under different bolt states and different sensor paths in sensor networks. The GMM is utilized to cluster the minority classes in multi-bolt looseness data. The assignment of weights to different clusters is based on the clustering density function, which is subsequently followed by oversampling. The KL distance is utilized to screen the SMOTE sample data, which improves the quality of the data by achieving inter-class balance and intra-class balance. To verify the effectiveness of the method, a multi-bolt looseness monitoring procedure is implemented. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can improve the accuracy of diagnosing early-stage bolt looseness.

Dynamic simulation-assisted Gaussian mixture alignment approach for fault diagnosis of rotation machinery under small samples

Abstract Obtaining a substantial number of actual samples for rotating machinery in an industrial setting can be challenging, particularly when faulty samples are acquired under hazardous working conditions. The issue of insufficient samples hinders the effective training of reliable fault diagnosis models, impeding the industrial implementation of advanced intelligent methods. This study proposes an innovative dynamic simulation-assisted Gaussian mixture alignment model (DSGMA) to address the challenge of applying fault diagnosis technologies, with its performance mined by advanced transfer algorithms. Specifically, we establish a fault dynamics model for rotating machinery and acquire a substantial amount of simulated data as the source domain to facilitate the training of the deep neural network model. Subsequently, we propose a Gaussian mixture-guided domain alignment approach that assigns a domain-independent Gaussian distribution to each category as prior knowledge, with the parameters calculated using limited actual samples. Diagnostic knowledge is transferred from the source domain to the target domain by minimizing the Kullback–Leibler divergence between the features of the simulated samples and the Gaussian mixture priors. Furthermore, the DSGMA model incorporates Gaussian clustering loss to augment the clustering capability of samples belonging to the same category from real devices and enhances the computational stability of the parameters in the Gaussian mixture model. The efficacy of the DSGMA method is validated using three publicly available datasets and compared against five widely adopted methods. The experimental findings illustrate that DSGMA exhibits superior diagnostic and robust capabilities, facilitating efficient fault diagnosis under scenarios of small samples.

An intelligent fault diagnosis method for rolling bearing using motor stator current signals

Abstract In the diagnosis of rolling bearing faults, the Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA) method offers advantages such as low cost, simplicity, and convenience compared to using vibration signals, temperature information, and other diagnostic objects. However, owing to the interference of high-frequency noise, power frequency, and its harmonics in current signals, which can severely affect the accuracy of bearing fault diagnosis, it is extremely challenging to use the original current signals during bearing faults directly for diagnostic purposes. Therefore, this paper proposes an intelligent fault diagnosis method based on the feature reconstruction (FR) method and convolutional neural networks (CNN). This method can achieve high-precision fault diagnosis using single-phase stator current signals from motors as the diagnostic objects. First, the FR method effectively removes the impact of high-frequency noise, supply frequency, and its harmonics from the current signals, while also highlighting subtle fault feature signals to a certain extent. Second, a CNN suitable for learning the characteristics of the current signals was constructed. Through feature extraction, learning, and classification of the current signal samples processed by the FR method, a diagnostic method with a high classification accuracy was obtained. Visualization techniques were used to present the final diagnosis results intuitively. The experimental results demonstrated the highest diagnostic accuracy and average diagnostic accuracy of the proposed method in diagnosing rolling bearing fault types, with an average diagnostic accuracy of approximately 99% for actual faulty bearing samples.

A novel fault diagnosis method under limited samples based on an extreme learning machine and meta-learning

BackgroundTraditional fault diagnosis methods typically rely on an adequate number of fault samples. Yet, in industrial processes, the availability of faulty samples is often limited, accompanied by high sample collection cost. In this case, traditional methods prove ineffective for accurate diagnosis. MethodsTo solve this issue with limited samples, a novel fault diagnosis method, incorporating Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) and Meta-learning, is proposed. This method comprises two stages: Meta-learning optimization and top-model classification. In the first stage, the Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning framework is adopted to extract gain valuable model parameters from the available faulty data, yielding in the optimization of the initial weight and bias of the network model to obtain the reconstructed ELM. This enhancement significantly bolsters the ELM's parameters optimization capability, especially in scenarios with limited fault samples. Consequently, in the second stage, the reconstructed ELM model is deployed for effective fault diagnosis. Significant FindingsThe proposed method has proven successful in the real-time diagnosis of electric submersible pump, specifically addressing the challenging issue of ineffective fault diagnosis due to the limited fault samples in condition monitoring. The results showcase a 30 % classification improvement compared to ELM and an 8 % enhancement over PSO-ELM, FOS-ELM, LE-ELM, and Siamese Nets.

Reweighted Regularized Prototypical Network for Few-Shot Fault Diagnosis.

In this article, we study the challenging few-shot fault diagnosis (FSFD) problem where limited faulty samples are available. Metric-based meta-learning methods have been a prevalent approach toward FSFD; however, most of them rely on learning a generalized distance metric and fall short of leveraging intraclass and interclass distribution information. To this end, we develop a novel reweighted regularized prototypical network to improve the performance of FSFD, where an intraclass reweighting strategy is proposed to reduce the influence of noise and outliers and obtain stable estimations of fault prototypes. In addition, a novel balance-enforcing regularization (BER) is proposed to hedge against the between-class imbalance and improve the discrimination capability. These two remedies help to reduce the intraclass difference and enlarge the interclass difference via episodic training. In this way, an improved metric space and a better diagnostic performance can be attained in a few-shot learning context. Case studies on the Tennessee Eastman benchmark process and a real-world railway turnout dataset demonstrate that the proposed FSFD approach compares favorably against state-of-the-art methodologies with desirable diagnostic performance.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence Approach for Diagnosing Faults in an Induction Furnace

For over a century, induction furnaces have been used in the core of foundries for metal melting and heating. They provide high melting/heating rates with optimal efficiency. The occurrence of faults not only imposes safety risks but also reduces productivity due to unscheduled shutdowns. The problem of diagnosing faults in induction furnaces has not yet been studied, and this work is the first to propose a data-driven framework for diagnosing faults in this application. This paper presents a deep neural network framework for diagnosing electrical faults by measuring real-time electrical parameters at the supply side. Experimental and sensory measurements are collected from multiple energy analyzer devices installed in the foundry. Next, a semi-supervised learning approach, known as the local outlier factor, has been used to discriminate normal and faulty samples from each other and label the data samples. Then, a deep neural network is trained with the collected labeled samples. The performance of the developed model is compared with several state-of-the-art techniques in terms of various performance metrics. The results demonstrate the superior performance of the selected deep neural network model over other classifiers, with an average F-measure of 0.9187. Due to the black box nature of the constructed neural network, the model predictions are interpreted by Shapley additive explanations and local interpretable model-agnostic explanations. The interpretability analysis reveals that classified faults are closely linked to variations in odd voltage/current harmonics of order 3, 11, 13, and 17, highlighting the critical impact of these parameters on the model’s prediction.

Wind turbine fault detection and identification using a two-tier machine learning framework

A proactive approach is essential to optimize wind turbine maintenance and minimize downtime. By utilizing advanced data analysis techniques on the existing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system data, valuable insights can be gained into wind turbine performance without incurring high costs. This allows for early fault detection and predictive maintenance, ensuring that unscheduled or reactive maintenance is minimized and revenue loss is mitigated. In this study, data from a wind turbine SCADA system in the southeast of Ireland were collected, preprocessed, and analyzed using statistical and visualization techniques to uncover hidden patterns related to five fault types within the system. The paper introduces a conditional function designed to test two given scenarios. The first scenario employs a two-tier approach involving fault detection followed by fault identification. Initially, faulty samples are detected in the first tier and then passed to the second tier, which is trained to diagnose the specific fault type for each sample. In contrast, the second scenario involves a simpler solution referred to as naive, which treats fault types and normal cases together in the same dataset and trains a model to distinguish between normal samples and those related to specific fault types. Machine learning models, particularly robust classifiers, were tested in both scenarios. Thirteen classifiers were included, ranging from tree-based to traditional classifiers, neural networks, and ensemble learners. Additionally, an averaging feature importance technique was employed to select the most impactful features on the model decisions as a starting point. A comparison of the results reveals that the proposed two-tier approach is more accurate and less time-consuming, achieving 95% accuracy in separating faulty from normal samples and approximately 91% in diagnosing each fault type. Furthermore, ensemble learners, particularly bagging and stacking, demonstrated superior fault detection and identification performance. The performance of the classifiers was validated using t-SNE and explainable AI techniques, confirming that the impactful features align with the findings and that the proposed two-tier solution outperforms the naive solution. These results strongly indicate that the proposed solution is accurate, independent, and less complex compared to existing solutions.

Fault diagnosis of accelerometer servo circuit output saturation based on feature electrical parameters extraction

The servo circuit of quartz flexible accelerometer is an extremely vital microelectronic device in inertial system. The paper introduces the traditional analysis process about output saturation fault of accelerometer servo circuit. For the shortcomings of traditional analysis methods, a fault diagnosis method based on feature electrical parameters extraction is proposed. According to the fault phenomenon, combined with the modular characteristics of hybrid integrated circuits, the feature electrical parameters of fault modes are extracted, and the fault modes' judgment basis is set. By the judgment results of the feature electrical parameters of the fault circuit, the circuit with output saturation fault caused by the electrical damage to the differential capacitance detector and other faults can be located quickly and accurately, and it is verified by the analysis of faulty circuit samples. Targeted for these faults, the improvement measures are put forward. This analysis method improves the fault diagnosis efficiency and reliability about the accelerometer servo circuit, and has guiding significance for enhancing the success rate of the failure analysis in the hybrid integrated circuits.

A hierarchical modeling strategy for condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of wind turbine using SCADA data

The development and utilization of wind energy can help promote the carbon neutrality. Condition monitoring and fault diagnosis based on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) can effectively improve wind turbine reliability and reduce operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. However, the complex data characteristics (e.g., time-varying and distribution-free) make it difficult to use a unified model to comprehensively evaluate the turbine state. To finely detect and analyze the turbine faulty mode, a hierarchical condition monitoring and fault diagnosis (CMFD) method is proposed, which consists of variable-level and turbine-level. First, the SCADA data is divided into two blocks: the nonstationary part with time-varying distribution, and the stationary part with time-invariant but non-Gaussian distribution. At the variable-level, this paper proposed a local monitoring unit based on sparse cointegration analysis (SCA) and independent component analysis (ICA) to detect faulty samples of different variable blocks. And the fault-related variables are isolated based on the proposed distributed reconstruction. At the turbine-level, the evaluation results from variable-level are fused: on the one hand, Bayesian inference is used to integrate monitoring statistics of stationary and nonstationary parts to comprehensively evaluate the operational state of the turbine; on the other hand, the root fault subsystem is deduced from the fault-related variables isolated from the two parts based on Gaussian process regression. The proposed method is applied in the operation and maintenance of a real wind farm, and the performance advantages are verified by the comparison with popular benchmarks.

Hurdles experienced by LIS authors from Pakistan during the operability or implementation of selected research methodologies: A qualitative exploration

Use of appropriate research methodology among authors is essential to produce high quality research. Practical operability or smooth implementation of research methodology and methods must be maintained because lapses in the implementation may hamper research and quality. Hurdles experienced by authors in the operability of research design may negatively impact the conclusions. Researchers need to be aware about the issues arising during the process of research and they must adopt certain steps to avoid such issues. The current study explored the hurdles, negative impacts and relevant measure to streamline the operability of research process. The current empirical research used qualitative design. Interview method was used for exploring author’s views. Pakistani LIS authors were selected for interview from those who have published more than one article during the period 2001 and 2016. Majority of the respondents experienced hurdles in the operability of selected research methodology. Few respondents faced problems because they selected inappropriate research method for the research problem, questions or phenomenon. Selection of irrelevant population and faulty sampling also create disturbances in the smooth execution of research process. Use of faulty data collection tool resulted in the collection of irrelevant, meaningless, neutral, or over rated data. Lack of access to data and its inventory nature and complexity of data analysis procedure also affected smooth operability. Hurdles created negative impact on the quality of research and compromised the accuracy, reliability and validity of results. Multiple strategies were proposed by authors to avoid such hurdles. The current study is an effort to help authors gain an understanding for better implementation and subsequently to make more informed decisions for selection of research methodology and methods.

A novel approach for bearings multiclass fault diagnosis fusing multiscale deep convolution and hybrid attention networks

Insufficient and imbalanced samples pose a significant challenge in bearing fault diagnosis, leading to low diagnosis accuracy. However, the fault characteristics of vibration signals are weak and difficult to extract when faults occur in the early stage. This paper proposes an effective fault diagnosis method that addresses small and imbalanced sample problems under noise interference. First, the number of faulty samples in the form of 1D signals is increased mainly by the sliding split sampling method. The preprocessed data are used to create 2D time–frequency diagrams using the continuous wavelet transform (CWT), which can extract effective features to improve the data quality. Subsequently, the minority samples are oversampled by combining synthetic minority oversampling technique to realize time–frequency conversion augmented oversampling. Moreover, the clustering method and random undersampling method are introduced to prevent the overfitting and underfitting problems respectively. Then, we propose a hybrid attention mechanism to enhance the extraction of effective feature information. This combination, integrating CWT with a multicolumn modified deep residual network, effectively extracts fault characteristics and suppresses noise effects. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method by comparison with other advanced methods using two case studies of bearing datasets.

HVAC early fault detection using a fuzzy logic based approach

The need for improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings has driven to the implementation of building energy management systems (BEMS) that can help facilities manager to discover and identify problems that may cause energy wastage or affect to occupants’ comfort. Modern data-driven fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) make use of the data collected by the building BEMS to provide high accuracy in the revelation of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system faults. However, these methods need a large amount of faulty data samples during the training, which is an uncommon situation in the real world. The main focus of this paper is to present a methodology to detect faults when the number of faulty samples is low. For this purpose, a regression-based methodology based on an adaptative neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) chiller model is developed using the data collected from a real use case. The model presents good results, that can be used for benchmarking the machine operation and detect the abnormal operation states.