A New Compound Fault Feature Extraction Method Based on Multipoint Kurtosis and Variational Mode Decomposition

Combination of Optimized Variational Mode Decomposition and Deep Transfer Learning: A Better Fault Diagnosis Approach for Diesel Engines

Extracting features manually and employing preeminent knowledge is overly utilized in methods to conduct fault diagnosis. A diagnosis approach utilizing intelligent methods of the optimized variational mode decomposition and deep transfer learning is proposed in this manuscript to deal with fault diagnosis. Firstly, the variational mode decomposition is optimized by K values of the dispersion entropy to realize an adaptive decomposition and reduce the noise of the signal. Secondly, an image with two dimensions is generated by a vibration signal with one dimension utilizing a short-time Fourier transform, after conducting noise reduction. Then, the ResNet18 network model is used to pre-train the model. Finally, the model transfer method is used to detect faults of a diesel engine. The results show that the proposed method outperforms the deep learning methods available in the literature. Besides, better noise reduction ability and higher diagnostic accuracy are attained.

Subway Gearbox Fault Diagnosis Algorithm Based on Adaptive Spline Impact Suppression

In the signal processing of real subway vehicles, impacts between wheelsets and rail joint gaps have significant negative effects on the spectrum. This introduces great difficulties for the fault diagnosis of gearboxes. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an adaptive time-domain signal segmentation method that envelopes the original signal using a cubic spline interpolation. The peak values of the rail joint gap impacts are extracted to realize the adaptive segmentation of gearbox fault signals when the vehicle was moving at a uniform speed. A long-time and unsteady signal affected by wheel-rail impacts is segmented into multiple short-term, steady-state signals, which can suppress the high amplitude of the shock response signal. Finally, on this basis, multiple short-term sample signals are analyzed by time- and frequency-domain analyses and compared with the nonfaulty results. The results showed that the method can efficiently suppress the high-amplitude components of subway gearbox vibration signals and effectively extract the characteristics of weak faults due to uniform wear of the gearbox in the time and frequency domains. This provides reference value for the gearbox fault diagnosis in engineering practice.

Groundwater Depth Forecasting Using Configurational Entropy Spectral Analyses with the Optimal Input

Accurate groundwater depth forecasting is particularly important for human life and sustainable groundwater management in arid and semi-arid areas. To improve the groundwater forecasting accuracy, in this paper, a hybrid groundwater depth forecasting model using configurational entropy spectral analyses (CESA) with the optimal input is constructed. An original groundwater depth series is decomposed into subseries of different frequencies using the variational mode decomposition (VMD) method. Cross-correlation analysis and Shannon entropy methods are applied to select the optimal input series for the model. The ultimate forecasted values of the groundwater depth can be obtained from the various forecasted values of the selected series with the CESA model. The applicability of the hybrid model is verified using the groundwater depth data from four monitoring wells in the Xi'an of Northwest China. The forecasting accuracy of the models was evaluated based on the average relative error (RE), root mean square error (RMSE), correlation coefficient (R) and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (NSE). The results indicated that comparing with the CESA and autoregressive model, the hybrid model has higher prediction performance.

Acoustic signal analysis for detecting defects inside an arc magnet using a combination of variational mode decomposition and beetle antennae search

An accurate, rapid signal analysis is crucial in the acoustic-based detection for internal defects in arc magnets. Benefiting from the adaptive decomposition without the mode mixing, variational mode decomposition (VMD), has emerged as a promising technology for processing and analyzing acoustic signals. However, improper parameter settings are the root cause of inaccurate VMD results, while existing optimization methods for VMD parameters are only applicable to a single signal with exclusive signal characteristics, rather than different signals with similar features. Therefore, we developed a new acoustic signal analysis method combining VMD, beetle antennae search (BAS), and naive Bayes classification (NBC), and then applied it for detecting internal defects of arc magnets. In this method, multiple optimizations for different signals are simplified to a one-time optimization for the whole signal group by a specially designed parameter-related fitness function. Since the coordinates of the function maximum value in a parameter space correspond to the unified parameter setting generating the overall optimal processing effect for all signals, BAS is introduced to achieve a rapid search of coordinates. With the obtained unified parameter setting, each acoustic signal of arc magnets can be consistently processed by VMD. Next, two modes stemmed from VMD are screened out by an energy threshold, and their specific frequency information is extracted as features representing the internal defects. NBC is carried out to learn and identify the extracted features. The experimental validation of the proposed method was conducted by detecting various arc magnets. Experimental results indicate that the identification accuracy reaches 100% and the detection speed per a single arc magnet approximately ranges between 1.7 and 4.5 s. This work provides not only a new strategy for the parameter optimization of VMD, but also a practical solution for the internal defect detection of arc magnets.

Research on Bearing Fault Diagnosis Method Based on Filter Features of MOMLMEDA and LSTM

As the supporting unit of rotating machinery, bearing can ensure efficient operation of the equipment. Therefore, it is very important to monitor the status of bearings accurately. A bearing fault diagnosis mothed based on Multipoint Optimal Minimum Local Mean Entropy Deconvolution Adjusted (MOMLMEDA) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is proposed. MOMLMEDA is an improved algorithm based on Multipoint Optimal Minimum Entropy Deconvolution Adjusted (MOMEDA). By setting the local kurtosis mean as a new selection criterion, it can effectively avoid the interference of false kurtosis caused by noise and improve the accuracy of optimal kurtosis position. The optimal filter designed by optimal kurtosis position has periodic and amplitude characteristics, which are used as the fault feature in this paper. However, this feature has temporal characteristics and cannot be used as input of general neural network directly. LSTM is selected as the classification network in this paper. It can effectively avoid the influence of the temporal problem existing in feature vectors. Accurate diagnosis of bearing faults is realized by training classification neural network with samples. The overall recognition rate is up to 93.50%.

A New Fault Diagnosis Method for a Diesel Engine Based on an Optimized Vibration Mel Frequency under Multiple Operation Conditions

The diesel engine has been a significant component of large-scale mechanical systems for the intelligent manufacturing industry. Because of its complex structure and poor working environment, it has trouble effectively acquiring the representative fault features. Further, fault diagnosis of the diesel engine faces great challenges. This paper presents a new fault diagnosis method for the detection of diesel engine faults under multiple operation conditions instead of conventional methods confined to a single condition. First, an adaptive correlation threshold process is designed as a preprocessing unit to enhance data quality by weakening non-impact region characteristics. Next, a feature extraction method for sound signals based on the Mel frequency cepstrum (MFC) is improved and introduced into the machinery fault diagnosis. Then, the combination of the improved feature and vibrational mode decomposition (VMD) is proposed to incorporate VMD into an effective adaptive decomposition of non-stationary signals to combine it with an excellent feature representation of the vibration signal. Finally, the vector quantization algorithm is adopted to reduce the feature dimensions and generate codebook model bases, which trains the K-Nearest Neighbor classifiers. Five comparative methods were carried out, and the experimental results show that the proposed method offers a good effect of the common valve clearance fault of diesel engines under different conditions.

Weak Degradation Characteristics Analysis of UAV Motors Based on Laplacian Eigenmaps and Variational Mode Decomposition

Brushless direct current (BLDC) motors are the source of flight power during the operation of rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and their working state directly affects the safety of the whole system. To predict and avoid motor faults, it is necessary to accurately understand the health degradation process of the motor before any fault occurs. However, in actual working conditions, due to the aerodynamic environmental conditions of the aircraft flight, the background noise components of the vibration signals characterizing the running state of the motor are complex and severely coupled, making it difficult for the weak degradation characteristics to be clearly reflected. To address these problems, a weak degradation characteristic extraction method based on variational mode decomposition (VMD) and Laplacian Eigenmaps (LE) was proposed in this study to precisely identify the degradation information in system health data, avoid the loss of critical information and the interference of redundant information, and to optimize the description of a motor's degradation process despite the presence of complex background noise. A validation experiment was conducted on a specific type of motor under operation with load, to obtain the degradation characteristics of multiple types of vibration signals, and to test the proposed method. The results proved that this method can improve the stability and accuracy of predicting motor health, thereby helping to predict the degradation state and to optimize the maintenance strategies.

A Fusion Frequency Feature Extraction Method for Underwater Acoustic Signal Based on Variational Mode Decomposition, Duffing Chaotic Oscillator and a Kind of Permutation Entropy

In order to effectively extract the frequency characteristics of an underwater acoustic signal under sensor measurement, a fusion frequency feature extraction method for an underwater acoustic signal is presented based on variational mode decomposition (VMD), duffing chaotic oscillator (DCO) and a kind of permutation entropy (PE). Firstly, VMD decomposes the complex multi-component underwater acoustic signal into a set of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), so as to extract the estimated center frequency of each IMF. Secondly, the frequency of the line spectrum can be obtained by using DCO and a kind of PE (KPE). DCO is used to detect the actual frequency of the line spectrum for each IMF and KPE can determine the accurate frequency when the phase space track is in the great periodic state. Finally, the frequency characteristic parameters acted as the input of the support vector machine (SVM) to distinguish different types of underwater acoustic signals. By comparing with the other three traditional methods for simulation signal and different kinds of underwater acoustic signals, the results show that the proposed method can accurately extract the frequency characteristics and effectively realize the classification and recognition for the underwater acoustic signal.

A Hybrid Model for Monthly Precipitation Time Series Forecasting Based on Variational Mode Decomposition with Extreme Learning Machine

The matter of success in forecasting precipitation is of great significance to flood control and drought relief, and water resources planning and management. For the nonlinear problem in forecasting precipitation time series, a hybrid prediction model based on variational mode decomposition (VMD) coupled with extreme learning machine (ELM) is proposed to reduce the difficulty in modeling monthly precipitation forecasting and improve the prediction accuracy. The monthly precipitation data in the past 60 years from Yan’an City and Huashan Mountain, Shaanxi Province, are used as cases to test this new hybrid model. First, the nonstationary monthly precipitation time series are decomposed into several relatively stable intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) by using VMD. Then, an ELM prediction model is established for each IMF. Next, the predicted values of these components are accumulated to obtain the final prediction results. Finally, three predictive indicators are adopted to measure the prediction accuracy of the proposed hybrid model, back propagation (BP) neural network, Elman neural network (Elman), ELM, and EMD-ELM models: mean absolute error (MAE), root mean squared error (RMSE), and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The experimental simulation results show that the proposed hybrid model has higher prediction accuracy and can be used to predict the monthly precipitation time series.