Performance Comparison of Time-Frequency Distributions for Estimation of Instantaneous Frequency of Heart Rate Variability Signals

Recent advances in the application of deep learning for fault diagnosis of rotating machinery using vibration signals

Vibration measurement and monitoring are essential in a wide variety of applications. Vibration measurements are critical for diagnosing industrial machinery malfunctions because they provide information about the condition of the rotating equipment. Vibration analysis is considered the most effective method for predictive maintenance because it is used to troubleshoot instantaneous faults as well as periodic maintenance. Numerous studies conducted in this vein have been published in a variety of outlets. This review documents data-driven and recently published deep learning techniques for vibration-based condition monitoring. Numerous studies were obtained from two reputable indexing databases, Web of Science and Scopus. Following a thorough review, 59 studies were selected for synthesis. The selected studies are then systematically discussed to provide researchers with an in-depth view of deep learning-based fault diagnosis methods based on vibration signals. Additionally, a few remarks regarding future research directions are made, including graph-based neural networks, physics-informed ML, and a transformer convolutional network-based fault diagnosis method.

A Neural Network Model for Estimating the Heart Rate Response to Constant Intensity Exercises

Estimating the heart rate (HR) response to exercises of a given intensity without the need of direct measurement is an open problem of great interest. We propose here a model that can estimate the heart rate response to exercise of constant intensity and its subsequent recovery, based on soft computing techniques. Multilayer perceptron artificial neural networks (NN) are implemented and trained using raw HR time series data. Our model’s input and output are the beat-to-beat time intervals and the HR values, respectively. The numerical results are very encouraging, as they indicate a mean relative square error of the estimated HR values of the order of 10−4 and an absolute error as low as 1.19 beats per minute, on average. Our model has also been proven to be superior when compared with existing mathematical models that predict HR values by numerical simulation. Our study concludes that our NN model can efficiently predict the HR response to any constant exercise intensity, a fact that can have many important applications, not only in the area of medicine and cardio-vascular health, but also in the areas of rehabilitation, general fitness, and competitive sport.

Fault Diagnosis in the Slip-Frequency Plane of Induction Machines Working in Time-Varying Conditions

Motor current signature analysis (MCSA) is a fault diagnosis method for induction machines (IMs) that has attracted wide industrial interest in recent years. It is based on the detection of the characteristic fault signatures that arise in the current spectrum of a faulty induction machine. Unfortunately, the MCSA method in its basic formulation can only be applied in steady state functioning. Nevertheless, every day increases the importance of inductions machines in applications such as wind generation, electric vehicles, or automated processes in which the machine works most of time under transient conditions. For these cases, new diagnostic methodologies have been proposed, based on the use of advanced time-frequency transforms—as, for example, the continuous wavelet transform, the Wigner Ville distribution, or the analytic function based on the Hilbert transform—which enables to track the fault components evolution along time. All these transforms have high computational costs and, furthermore, generate as results complex spectrograms, which require to be interpreted for qualified technical staff. This paper introduces a new methodology for the diagnosis of faults of IM working in transient conditions, which, unlike the methods developed up to today, analyzes the current signal in the slip-instantaneous frequency plane (s-IF), instead of the time-frequency (t-f) plane. It is shown that, in the s-IF plane, the fault components follow patterns that that are simple and unique for each type of fault, and thus does not depend on the way in which load and speed vary during the transient functioning; this characteristic makes the diagnostic task easier and more reliable. This work introduces a general scheme for the IMs diagnostic under transient conditions, through the analysis of the stator current in the s-IF plane. Another contribution of this paper is the introduction of the specific s-IF patterns associated with three different types of faults (rotor asymmetry fault, mixed eccentricity fault, and single-point bearing defects) that are theoretically justified and experimentally tested. As the calculation of the IF of the fault component is a key issue of the proposed diagnostic method, this paper also includes a comparative analysis of three different mathematical tools for calculating the IF, which are compared not only theoretically but also experimentally, comparing their performance when are applied to the tested diagnostic signals.

Performance Evaluation of Time-Frequency Distributions for ECG Signal Analysis

The non-stationary and multi-frequency nature of biomedical signal activities makes the use of time-frequency distributions (TFDs) for analysis inevitable. Time-frequency analysis provides simultaneous interpretations in both time and frequency domain enabling comprehensive explanation, presentation and interpretation of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The diversity of TFDs and specific properties for each type show the need to determine the best TFD for ECG analysis. In this study, a performance evaluation of five TFDs in term of ECG abnormality detection is presented. The detection criteria based on extracted features from most important ECG signal components (QRS) to detect normal and abnormal cases. This is achieved by estimating its energy concentration magnitude using the TFDs. The TFDs analyse ECG signals in one-minute interval instead of conventional time domain approach that analyses based on beat or frame containing several beats. The MIT-BIH normal sinus rhythm ECG database total records of 18 long-term ECG sampled at 128 Hz have been analysed. The tested TFDs include Dual-Tree Wavelet Transform, Spectrogram, Pseudo Wigner-Ville, Choi-Williams, and Born-Jordan. Each record is divided into one-minute slots, which is not considered previously, and analysed. The sample periods (slots) are randomly selected ten minutes interval for each record. This result with 99.44% detection accuracy for 15,735 ECG beats shows that Choi-Williams distribution is most reliable to be used for heart problem detection especially in automated systems that provide continuous monitoring for long time duration.