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Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2019) | Viewed by 111096

Special Issue Editor

Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Interests: sensors; prognostics and health management; smart sensing; intelligent control; battery management system

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) methodologies can provide effective means for a reduction in the costs associated with the maintenance and sustainability of complex systems, equipment, and facilities through the accurate assessment of incipient damages and the reliable prediction of the remaining useful life at the component and system levels, thereby enabling predictive maintenance while replacing periodic/routine maintenance scheme. As a relatively new engineering discipline, PHM is receiving fast-growing attention and interest from both academia and industry nowadays, and has found widespread applications in aerospace, energy, manufacturing, defense, automotive, transportation, communication, and healthcare. Sensors are essential components of a typical PHM system. Effective PHM relies on advanced sensors and sensing technologies for providing informative data to estimate the health condition of the system. The MDPI journal, Sensors, is soliciting high-quality papers that document original and significant research works in “Sensors for PHM”. We welcome your participation and look forward to your contribution to this Special Issue.

Dr. Jie Liu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Sensors
  • Sensing Technology
  • Sensor Design
  • Sensor System
  • Smart Sensing
  • Remote Sensing
  • Wireless Sensing
  • Sensor Development
  • Sensor Calibration
  • Multisensory Integration
  • Self-Sensing Technology
  • Sensor Deployment
  • Sensor Data Acquisition
  • Sensor Data Analysis and Validation

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Published Papers (24 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1765 KiB  
Article
A Comprehensive Evaluation Method of Sensor Selection for PHM Based on Grey Clustering
by Fei Guan, Wei-Wei Cui, Lian-Feng Li and Jie Wu
Sensors 2020, 20(6), 1710; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20061710 - 19 Mar 2020
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3012
Abstract
Sensor selection plays an essential and fundamental role in prognostics and health management technology, and it is closely related to fault diagnosis, life prediction, and health assessment. The existing methods of sensor selection do not have an evaluation standard, which leads to different [...] Read more.
Sensor selection plays an essential and fundamental role in prognostics and health management technology, and it is closely related to fault diagnosis, life prediction, and health assessment. The existing methods of sensor selection do not have an evaluation standard, which leads to different selection results. It is not helpful for the selection and layout of sensors. This paper proposes a comprehensive evaluation method of sensor selection for prognostics and health management (PHM) based on grey clustering. The described approach divides sensors into three grey classes, and defines and quantifies three grey indexes based on a dependency matrix. After a brief introduction to the whitening weight function, we propose a combination weight considering the objective data and subjective tendency to improve the effectiveness of the selection result. Finally, the clustering result of sensors is obtained by analyzing the clustering coefficient, which is calculated based on the grey clustering theory. The proposed approach is illustrated by an electronic control system, in which the effectiveness of different methods of sensor selection is compared. The result shows that the technique can give a convincing analysis result by evaluating the selection results of different methods, and is also very helpful for adjusting sensors to provide a more precise result. This approach can be utilized in sensor selection and evaluation for prognostics and health management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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21 pages, 3440 KiB  
Article
Aircraft Engine Prognostics Based on Informative Sensor Selection and Adaptive Degradation Modeling with Functional Principal Component Analysis
by Bin Zhang, Kai Zheng, Qingqing Huang, Song Feng, Shangqi Zhou and Yi Zhang
Sensors 2020, 20(3), 920; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20030920 - 9 Feb 2020
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 9055
Abstract
Engine prognostics are critical to improve safety, reliability, and operational efficiency of an aircraft. With the development in sensor technology, multiple sensors are embedded or deployed to monitor the health condition of the aircraft engine. Thus, the challenge of engine prognostics lies in [...] Read more.
Engine prognostics are critical to improve safety, reliability, and operational efficiency of an aircraft. With the development in sensor technology, multiple sensors are embedded or deployed to monitor the health condition of the aircraft engine. Thus, the challenge of engine prognostics lies in how to model and predict future health by appropriate utilization of these sensor information. In this paper, a prognostic approach is developed based on informative sensor selection and adaptive degradation modeling with functional data analysis. The presented approach selects sensors based on metrics and constructs health index to characterize engine degradation by fusing the selected informative sensors. Next, the engine degradation is adaptively modeled with the functional principal component analysis (FPCA) method and future health is prognosticated using the Bayesian inference. The prognostic approach is applied to run-to-failure data sets of C-MAPSS test-bed developed by NASA. Results show that the proposed method can effectively select the informative sensors and accurately predict the complex degradation of the aircraft engine. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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17 pages, 3846 KiB  
Article
A Variational Stacked Autoencoder with Harmony Search Optimizer for Valve Train Fault Diagnosis of Diesel Engine
by Kun Chen, Zhiwei Mao, Haipeng Zhao, Zhinong Jiang and Jinjie Zhang
Sensors 2020, 20(1), 223; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20010223 - 31 Dec 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 3624
Abstract
Diesel engine fault diagnosis is vital due to enhanced reliability and economic efficiency requirements. The extracted features in traditional fault diagnosis are constructed manually, which is very cumbersome because of the requirement for lots of expertise. To handle this issue, this paper proposed [...] Read more.
Diesel engine fault diagnosis is vital due to enhanced reliability and economic efficiency requirements. The extracted features in traditional fault diagnosis are constructed manually, which is very cumbersome because of the requirement for lots of expertise. To handle this issue, this paper proposed a variational stacked autoencoder (VSAE) to adaptively extract features from angular domain signals. As an unsupervised algorithm, VSAE can extract high-level features with the help of multiple encoding layers. Layer-wise pre-training and fine-tuning are introduced to get a better network initialization value. Moreover, the dropout technique and the batch normalization technique are carried out to prevent over-fitting and implement fast convergence. Finally, the harmony search optimizer (HSO) algorithm is introduced to get an appropriate hyper-parameter setting in the VSAE model, as well as make adaptive adjustment of the network structure. In order to verify the proposed method, the valve train fault data is collected on the diesel engine test rig under twelve operating conditions. The results indicate that the proposed scheme can effectively diagnose different degrees of intake valve fault, exhaust valve fault, and coupling fault under various operating conditions. Furthermore, the classification accuracy improved from 94.10% to 98.85%VSAE compared with stacked autoencoder (SAE) and some other traditional fault diagnosis algorithms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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14 pages, 5224 KiB  
Article
A Macro Lens-Based Optical System Design for Phototherapeutic Instrumentation
by Hojong Choi, Se-woon Choe and Jae-Myung Ryu
Sensors 2019, 19(24), 5427; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19245427 - 9 Dec 2019
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 4395
Abstract
Light emitting diode (LED) and ultrasound have been powerful treatment stimuli for tumor cell growth due to non-radiation effects. This research is the first preliminary study of tumor cell suppression using a macro-lens-supported 460-nm LED combined with high-frequency ultrasound. The cell density, when [...] Read more.
Light emitting diode (LED) and ultrasound have been powerful treatment stimuli for tumor cell growth due to non-radiation effects. This research is the first preliminary study of tumor cell suppression using a macro-lens-supported 460-nm LED combined with high-frequency ultrasound. The cell density, when exposed to the LED combined with ultrasound, was gradually reduced after 30 min of induction for up to three consecutive days when 48-W DC, 20-cycle, and 50 Vp-p sinusoidal pulses were applied to the LEDs through a designed macro lens and to the ultrasound transducer, respectively. Using a developed macro lens, the non-directional light beam emitted from the LED could be localized to a certain spot, likewise with ultrasound, to avoid additional undesirable thermal effects on the small sized tumor cells. In the experimental results, compared to LED-only induction (14.49 ± 2.73%) and ultrasound-only induction (13.27 ± 2.33%), LED combined with ultrasound induction exhibited the lowest cell density (6.25 ± 1.25%). Therefore, our measurement data demonstrated that a macro-lens-supported 460-nm LED combined with an ultrasound transducer could possibly suppress early stage tumor cells effectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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21 pages, 4612 KiB  
Article
Performance Sensing Data Prediction for an Aircraft Auxiliary Power Unit Using the Optimized Extreme Learning Machine
by Xiaolei Liu, Liansheng Liu, Lulu Wang, Qing Guo and Xiyuan Peng
Sensors 2019, 19(18), 3935; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19183935 - 12 Sep 2019
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 3058
Abstract
The aircraft auxiliary power unit (APU) is responsible for environmental control in the cabin and the main engines starting the aircraft. The prediction of its performance sensing data is significant for condition-based maintenance. As a complex system, its performance sensing data have a [...] Read more.
The aircraft auxiliary power unit (APU) is responsible for environmental control in the cabin and the main engines starting the aircraft. The prediction of its performance sensing data is significant for condition-based maintenance. As a complex system, its performance sensing data have a typically nonlinear feature. In order to monitor this process, a model with strong nonlinear fitting ability needs to be formulated. A neural network has advantages of solving a nonlinear problem. Compared with the traditional back propagation neural network algorithm, an extreme learning machine (ELM) has features of a faster learning speed and better generalization performance. To enhance the training of the neural network with a back propagation algorithm, an ELM is employed to predict the performance sensing data of the APU in this study. However, the randomly generated weights and thresholds of the ELM often may result in unstable prediction results. To address this problem, a restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) is utilized to optimize the ELM. In this way, a stable performance parameter prediction model of the APU can be obtained and better performance parameter prediction results can be achieved. The proposed method is evaluated by the real APU sensing data of China Southern Airlines Company Limited Shenyang Maintenance Base. Experimental results show that the optimized ELM with an RBM is more stable and can obtain more accurate prediction results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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14 pages, 6858 KiB  
Article
Segmentation of Online Ferrograph Images with Strong Interference Based on Uniform Discrete Curvelet Transformation
by Leng Han, Song Feng, Guang Qiu, Jiufei Luo, Hong Xiao and Junhong Mao
Sensors 2019, 19(7), 1546; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19071546 - 30 Mar 2019
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3005
Abstract
Through real-time acquisition of the visual characteristics of wear debris in lube oil, an on-line visual ferrograph (OLVF) achieves online monitoring of equipment wear in practice. However, since a large number of bubbles can exist in lube oil and appear as a dynamically [...] Read more.
Through real-time acquisition of the visual characteristics of wear debris in lube oil, an on-line visual ferrograph (OLVF) achieves online monitoring of equipment wear in practice. However, since a large number of bubbles can exist in lube oil and appear as a dynamically changing interference shadow in OLVF ferrograms, traditional algorithms may easily misidentify the interference shadow as wear debris, resulting in a large error in the extracted wear debris characteristic. Based on this possibility, a jam-proof uniform discrete curvelet transformation (UDCT)-based method for the binarization of wear debris images was proposed. Through multiscale analysis of the OLVF ferrograms using UDCT and nonlinear transformation of UDCT coefficients, low-frequency suppression and high-frequency denoising of wear debris images were conducted. Then, the Otsu algorithm was used to achieve binarization of wear debris images under strong interference influence. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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23 pages, 764 KiB  
Article
Lifetime Estimation for Multi-Phase Deteriorating Process with Random Abrupt Jumps
by Jianxun Zhang, Xiaosheng Si, Dangbo Du, Chen Hu and Changhua Hu
Sensors 2019, 19(6), 1472; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19061472 - 26 Mar 2019
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 3562
Abstract
Owing to operating condition changing, physical mutation, and sudden shocks, degradation trajectories usually exhibit multi-phase features, and the abrupt jump often appears at the changing time, which makes the traditional methods of lifetime estimation unavailable. In this paper, we mainly focus on how [...] Read more.
Owing to operating condition changing, physical mutation, and sudden shocks, degradation trajectories usually exhibit multi-phase features, and the abrupt jump often appears at the changing time, which makes the traditional methods of lifetime estimation unavailable. In this paper, we mainly focus on how to estimate the lifetime of the multi-phase degradation process with abrupt jumps at the change points under the concept of the first passage time (FPT). Firstly, a multi-phase degradation model with jumps based on the Wiener process is formulated to describe the multi-phase degradation pattern. Then, we attain the lifetime’s closed-form expression for the two-phase model with fixed jump relying on the distribution of the degradation state at the change point. Furthermore, we continue to investigate the lifetime estimation of the degradation process with random effect caused by unit-to-unit variability and the multi-phase degradation process. We extend the results of the two-phase case with fixed parameters to these two cases. For better implementation, a model identification method with off-line and on-line parts based on Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm and Bayesian rule is proposed. Finally, a numerical case study and a practical example of gyro are provided for illustration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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19 pages, 4020 KiB  
Article
An Intelligent Fault Diagnosis Method for Reciprocating Compressors Based on LMD and SDAE
by Yang Liu, Lixiang Duan, Zhuang Yuan, Ning Wang and Jianping Zhao
Sensors 2019, 19(5), 1041; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19051041 - 28 Feb 2019
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 4661
Abstract
The effective fault diagnosis in the prognostic and health management of reciprocating compressors has been a research hotspot for a long time. The vibration signal of reciprocating compressors is nonlinear and non-stationary. However, the traditional methods applied to processing such signals have three [...] Read more.
The effective fault diagnosis in the prognostic and health management of reciprocating compressors has been a research hotspot for a long time. The vibration signal of reciprocating compressors is nonlinear and non-stationary. However, the traditional methods applied to processing such signals have three issues, including separating the useful frequency bands from overlapped signals, extracting fault features with strong subjectivity, and processing the massive data with limited learning abilities. To address the above issues, this paper, which is based on the idea of deep learning, proposed an intelligent fault diagnosis method combining Local Mean Decomposition (LMD) and the Stack Denoising Autoencoder (SDAE). The vibration signal is firstly decomposed by LMD and reconstructed based on the cross-correlation criterion. The virtual noise channel is constructed to reduce the noise of the vibration signal. Then, the de-noised signal is input into the trained SDAE model to learn the fault features adaptively. Finally, the conditions of the reciprocating compressor valve are classified by the proposed method. The results show that classification accuracy is 92.72% under the condition of a low signal-noise ratio, which is 5 percentage points higher than that of the traditional methods. This shows the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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13 pages, 3063 KiB  
Article
A Parametric Design Method for Optimal Quick Diagnostic Software
by Xiao-jian Yi and Peng Hou
Sensors 2019, 19(4), 910; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19040910 - 21 Feb 2019
Viewed by 2709
Abstract
Fault diagnostic software is required to respond to faults as early as possible in time-critical applications. However, the existing methods based on early diagnosis are not adequate. First, there is no common standard to quantify the response time of a fault diagnostic software [...] Read more.
Fault diagnostic software is required to respond to faults as early as possible in time-critical applications. However, the existing methods based on early diagnosis are not adequate. First, there is no common standard to quantify the response time of a fault diagnostic software to the fault. Second, none of these methods take into account how the objective to improve the response time may affect the accuracy of the designed fault diagnostic software. In this work, a measure of the response time is provided, which was formulated using the time complexity of the algorithm and the signal acquisition time. Model optimization was built into the designed method. Its objective was to minimize the response time. The constraint of the method is to guarantee diagnostic accuracy to no less than the required accuracy. An improved feature selection method was used to solve the optimization modeling. After that, the design parameter of the optimal quick diagnostic software was obtained. Finally, the parametric design method was evaluated with two sets of experiments based on real-world bearing vibration data. The results demonstrated that optimal quick diagnostic software with a pre-defined accuracy could be obtained through the parametric design method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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13 pages, 1768 KiB  
Article
Bio-Inspired PHM Model for Diagnostics of Faults in Power Transformers Using Dissolved Gas-in-Oil Data
by Huanyu Dong, Xiaohui Yang, Anyi Li, Zihao Xie and Yuanlong Zuo
Sensors 2019, 19(4), 845; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19040845 - 18 Feb 2019
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3647
Abstract
Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) is an emerging technique which can improve the availability and efficiency of equipment. A series of related optimization of the PHM system has been achieved due to the growing need for lowering the cost of maintenance. The PHM [...] Read more.
Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) is an emerging technique which can improve the availability and efficiency of equipment. A series of related optimization of the PHM system has been achieved due to the growing need for lowering the cost of maintenance. The PHM system highly relies on data collected from its components. Based on the theory of machine learning, this paper proposes a bio-inspired PHM model based on a dissolved gas-in-oil dataset (DGA) to diagnose faults of transformes in power grids. Specifically, this model applies Bat algorithm (BA), a metaheuristic population-based algorithm, to optimize the structure of the Back-propagation neural network (BPNN). Furthermore, this paper proposes a modified Bat algorithm (MBA); here the chaos strategy is utilized to improve the random initialization process of BA in order to avoid falling into local optima. To prove that the proposed PHM model has better fault diagnostic performance than others, fitness and mean squared error (MSE) of Bat-BPNN are set as reference amounts to compare with other power grid PHM approaches including BPNN, Particle swarm optimization (PSO)-BPNN, as well as Genetic algorithm (GA)-BPNN. The experimental results show that the BA-BPNN model has increased the fault diagnosis accuracy from 77.14% to 97.14%, which is higher than other power transformer PHM models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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16 pages, 5695 KiB  
Article
Segmentation of the ECG Signal by Means of a Linear Regression Algorithm
by Javier Aspuru, Alberto Ochoa-Brust, Ramón A. Félix, Walter Mata-López, Luis J. Mena, Rodolfo Ostos and Rafael Martínez-Peláez
Sensors 2019, 19(4), 775; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19040775 - 14 Feb 2019
Cited by 41 | Viewed by 11321
Abstract
The monitoring and processing of electrocardiogram (ECG) beats have been actively studied in recent years: new lines of research have even been developed to analyze ECG signals using mobile devices. Considering these trends, we proposed a simple and low computing cost algorithm to [...] Read more.
The monitoring and processing of electrocardiogram (ECG) beats have been actively studied in recent years: new lines of research have even been developed to analyze ECG signals using mobile devices. Considering these trends, we proposed a simple and low computing cost algorithm to process and analyze an ECG signal. Our approach is based on the use of linear regression to segment the signal, with the goal of detecting the R point of the ECG wave and later, to separate the signal in periods for detecting P, Q, S, and T peaks. After pre-processing of ECG signal to reduce the noise, the algorithm was able to efficiently detect fiducial points, information that is transcendental for diagnosis of heart conditions using machine learning classifiers. When tested on 260 ECG records, the detection approach performed with a Sensitivity of 97.5% for Q-point and 100% for the rest of ECG peaks. Finally, we validated the robustness of our algorithm by developing an ECG sensor to register and transmit the acquired signals to a mobile device in real time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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22 pages, 3835 KiB  
Article
UAV Sensor Fault Detection Using a Classifier without Negative Samples: A Local Density Regulated Optimization Algorithm
by Kai Guo, Liansheng Liu, Shuhui Shi, Datong Liu and Xiyuan Peng
Sensors 2019, 19(4), 771; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19040771 - 13 Feb 2019
Cited by 56 | Viewed by 4550
Abstract
Fault detection for sensors of unmanned aerial vehicles is essential for ensuring flight security, in which the flight control system conducts real-time control for the vehicles relying on the sensing information from sensors, and erroneous sensor data will lead to false flight control [...] Read more.
Fault detection for sensors of unmanned aerial vehicles is essential for ensuring flight security, in which the flight control system conducts real-time control for the vehicles relying on the sensing information from sensors, and erroneous sensor data will lead to false flight control commands, causing undesirable consequences. However, because of the scarcity of faulty instances, it still remains a challenging issue for flight sensor fault detection. The one-class support vector machine approach is a favorable classifier without negative samples, however, it is sensitive to outliers that deviate from the center and lacks a mechanism for coping with them. The compactness of its decision boundary is influenced, leading to the degradation of detection rate. To deal with this issue, an optimized one-class support vector machine approach regulated by local density is proposed in this paper, which regulates the tolerance extents of its decision boundary to the outliers according to their extent of abnormality indicated by their local densities. The application scope of the local density theory is narrowed to keep the internal instances unchanged and a rule for assigning the outliers continuous density coefficients is raised. Simulation results on a real flight control system model have proved its effectiveness and superiority. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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13 pages, 2011 KiB  
Article
3D SSY Estimate of EPFM Constraint Parameter under Biaxial Loading for Sensor Structure Design
by Ping Ding and Xin Wang
Sensors 2019, 19(3), 735; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030735 - 12 Feb 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3264
Abstract
Conventional sensor structure design and related fracture mechanics analysis are based on the single J-integral parameter approach of elastic-plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM). Under low crack constraint cases, the EPFM one-parameter approach generally gives a stress overestimate, which results in a great cost [...] Read more.
Conventional sensor structure design and related fracture mechanics analysis are based on the single J-integral parameter approach of elastic-plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM). Under low crack constraint cases, the EPFM one-parameter approach generally gives a stress overestimate, which results in a great cost waste of labor and sensor components. The J-A two-parameter approach overcomes this limitation. To enable the extensive application of the J-A approach on theoretical research and sensor engineering problem, under small scale yielding (SSY) conditions, the authors developed an estimate method to conveniently and quickly obtain the constraint (second) parameter A values directly from T-stress. Practical engineering application of sensor structure analysis and design focuses on three-dimensional (3D) structures with biaxial external loading, while the estimate method was developed based on two-dimensional (2D) plain strain condition with uniaxial loading. In the current work, the estimate method was successfully extended to a 3D structure with biaxial loading cases, which is appropriate for practical sensor design. The estimate method extension and validation process was implemented through a thin 3D single edge cracked plate (SECP) specimen. The process implementation was completed in two specified planes of 3D SECP along model thickness. A wide range of material and geometrical properties were applied for the extension and validation process, with material hardening exponent value 3, 5 and 10, and crack length ratio 0.1, 0.3 and 0.7. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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12 pages, 3866 KiB  
Article
A Wear Debris Segmentation Method for Direct Reflection Online Visual Ferrography
by Song Feng, Guang Qiu, Jiufei Luo, Leng Han, Junhong Mao and Yi Zhang
Sensors 2019, 19(3), 723; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030723 - 11 Feb 2019
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4434
Abstract
Wear debris in lube oil was observed using a direct reflection online visual ferrograph (OLVF) to monitor the machine running condition and judge wear failure online. The existing research has mainly concentrated on extraction of wear debris concentration and size according to ferrograms [...] Read more.
Wear debris in lube oil was observed using a direct reflection online visual ferrograph (OLVF) to monitor the machine running condition and judge wear failure online. The existing research has mainly concentrated on extraction of wear debris concentration and size according to ferrograms under transmitted light. Reports on the segmentation algorithm of the wear debris ferrograms under reflected light are lacking. In this paper, a wear debris segmentation algorithm based on edge detection and contour classification is proposed. The optimal segmentation threshold is obtained by an adaptive canny algorithm, and the contour classification filling method is applied to overcome the problems of excessive brightness or darkness of some wear debris that is often neglected by traditional segmentation algorithms such as the Otsu and Kittler algorithms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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22 pages, 5190 KiB  
Article
Collective Anomalies Detection for Sensing Series of Spacecraft Telemetry with the Fusion of Probability Prediction and Markov Chain Model
by Jingyue Pang, Datong Liu, Yu Peng and Xiyuan Peng
Sensors 2019, 19(3), 722; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030722 - 11 Feb 2019
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4674
Abstract
Telemetry series, generally acquired from sensors, are the only basis for the ground management system to judge the working performance and health status of orbiting spacecraft. In particular, anomalies within telemetry can reflect sensor failure, transmission errors, and the major faults of the [...] Read more.
Telemetry series, generally acquired from sensors, are the only basis for the ground management system to judge the working performance and health status of orbiting spacecraft. In particular, anomalies within telemetry can reflect sensor failure, transmission errors, and the major faults of the related subsystem. Therefore, anomaly detection for telemetry series has drawn great attention from the aerospace area, where probability prediction methods, e.g., Gaussian process regression and relevance vector machine, have an inherent advantage for anomaly detection in time series with uncertainty presentation. However, labelling a single point with probability prediction faces many isolated false alarms, as well as a lower detection rate for collective anomalies that significantly limits its practical application. Simple sliding window fusion can decrease the false positives, but the support number of anomalies within the sliding window is difficult to set effectively for different series. Therefore, in this work, fused with the probability prediction-based method, the Markov chain is designed to compute the support probability of each testing series to realize the improvement on collective anomaly mode. The experiments on simulated data sets and the actual telemetry series validated the effectiveness and applicability of our proposed method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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12 pages, 2321 KiB  
Article
A Simplified SSY Estimate Method to Determine EPFM Constraint Parameter for Sensor Design
by Ping Ding and Xin Wang
Sensors 2019, 19(3), 717; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030717 - 10 Feb 2019
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2750
Abstract
To implement a sensor structure analysis and design (as well as other engineering applications), a two-parameter approach using elastic–plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM) could be applied to analyze a structure more accurately than a one-parameter approach, especially for structures with low crack constraint. The [...] Read more.
To implement a sensor structure analysis and design (as well as other engineering applications), a two-parameter approach using elastic–plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM) could be applied to analyze a structure more accurately than a one-parameter approach, especially for structures with low crack constraint. The application of the J-A two-parameter approach on sensors and other structures depends on the obtainment of a constraint parameter A. To conveniently and effectively obtain the A parameter values, the authors have developed a T-stress-based estimate method under a small-scale yielding (SSY) condition. Under a uniaxial external loading condition, a simplified format of the T-stress-based estimate has been proposed by the authors to obtain the parameter A much more conveniently and effectively. Generally, sensors and other practical engineering structures endure biaxial external loading instead of the uniaxial one. In the current work, the simplified formation of the estimate method is extended to a biaxial loading condition. By comparing the estimated A parameter values with their numerical solutions from a finite element analysis (FEA) results, the extension of the simplified formation of T-stress-based estimate method to biaxial loading was discussed and validated. The comparison procedure was completed using a wide variety of materials and geometrical properties on three types of specimens: single edge cracked plate (SECP), center cracked plate (CCP), and double edge cracked plate (DECP). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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15 pages, 1838 KiB  
Article
Sliding Mode Fault Tolerant Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with Sensor and Actuator Faults
by Juan Tan, Yonghua Fan, Pengpeng Yan, Chun Wang and Hao Feng
Sensors 2019, 19(3), 643; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030643 - 3 Feb 2019
Cited by 39 | Viewed by 5279
Abstract
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been developing rapidly recently, and the safety and the reliability of the UAV are significant to the mission execution and the life of UAV. Sensor and actuator failures of a UAV are one of the most common [...] Read more.
The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been developing rapidly recently, and the safety and the reliability of the UAV are significant to the mission execution and the life of UAV. Sensor and actuator failures of a UAV are one of the most common malfunctions, threating the safety and life of the UAV. Fault-tolerant control technology is an effective method to improve the reliability and safety of UAV, which also contributes to vehicle health management (VHM). This paper deals with the sliding mode fault-tolerant control of the UAV, considering the failures of sensor and actuator. Firstly, a terminal sliding surface is designed to ensure the state of the system on the sliding mode surface throughout the control process based on the simplified coupling dynamic model. Then, the sliding mode control (SMC) method combined with the RBF neural network algorithm is used to design the parameters of the sliding mode controller, and with this, the efficiency of the design process is improved and system chattering is minimized. Finally, the Simulink simulations are carried out using a fault tolerance controller under the conditions where accelerometer sensor, gyroscope sensor or actuator failures is assumed. The results show that the proposed control strategy is quite an effective method for the control of UAVs with accelerometer sensor, gyroscope sensor or actuator failures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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17 pages, 1238 KiB  
Article
A Mission Reliability-Driven Manufacturing System Health State Evaluation Method Based on Fusion of Operational Data
by Xiao Han, Zili Wang, Yihai He, Yixiao Zhao, Zhaoxiang Chen and Di Zhou
Sensors 2019, 19(3), 442; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030442 - 22 Jan 2019
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3839
Abstract
The rapid development of complexity and intelligence in manufacturing systems leads to an increase in potential operational risks and therefore requires a more comprehensive system-level health diagnostics approach. Based on the massive multi-source operational data collected by smart sensors, this paper proposes a [...] Read more.
The rapid development of complexity and intelligence in manufacturing systems leads to an increase in potential operational risks and therefore requires a more comprehensive system-level health diagnostics approach. Based on the massive multi-source operational data collected by smart sensors, this paper proposes a mission reliability-driven manufacturing system health state evaluation method. Characteristic attributes affecting the mission reliability are monitored and analyzed based on different sensor groups, including the performance state of the manufacturing equipment, the execution state of the production task and the quality state of the manufactured product. The Dempster-Shafer (D-S) evidence theory approach is used to diagnose the health state of the manufacturing system. Results of a case study show that the proposed evaluation method can dynamically and effectively characterize the actual health state of manufacturing systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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17 pages, 1923 KiB  
Article
Differential Equation-Based Prediction Model for Early Change Detection in Transient Running Status
by Xin Wen, Guangyuan Chen, Guoliang Lu, Zhiliang Liu and Peng Yan
Sensors 2019, 19(2), 412; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19020412 - 20 Jan 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4247
Abstract
Early detection of changes in transient running status from sensor signals attracts increasing attention in modern industries. To achieve this end, this paper presents a new differential equation-based prediction model that can realize one-step-ahead prediction of machine status. Together with this model, an [...] Read more.
Early detection of changes in transient running status from sensor signals attracts increasing attention in modern industries. To achieve this end, this paper presents a new differential equation-based prediction model that can realize one-step-ahead prediction of machine status. Together with this model, an analysis of continuous monitoring of condition signal by means of a null hypothesis testing is presented to inspect/diagnose whether an abnormal status change occurs or not during successive machine operations. The detection operation is executed periodically and continuously, such that the machine running status can be monitored with an online and real-time manner. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using three representative real-engineering applications: external loading status monitoring, bearing health status monitoring and speed condition monitoring. The method is also compared with those benchmark methods reported in the literature. From the results, the proposed method demonstrates significant improvements over others, which suggests its superiority and great potentials in real applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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17 pages, 3474 KiB  
Article
Machine Learning-Based Sensor Data Modeling Methods for Power Transformer PHM
by Anyi Li, Xiaohui Yang, Huanyu Dong, Zihao Xie and Chunsheng Yang
Sensors 2018, 18(12), 4430; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18124430 - 14 Dec 2018
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 8824
Abstract
An emerging prognostic and health management (PHM) technology has recently attracted a great deal of attention from academies, industries, and governments. The need for higher equipment availability and lower maintenance cost is driving the development and integration of prognostic and health management systems. [...] Read more.
An emerging prognostic and health management (PHM) technology has recently attracted a great deal of attention from academies, industries, and governments. The need for higher equipment availability and lower maintenance cost is driving the development and integration of prognostic and health management systems. PHM models depend on the smart sensors and data generated from sensors. This paper proposed a machine learning-based methods for developing PHM models from sensor data to perform fault diagnostic for transformer systems in a smart grid. In particular, we apply the Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm to optimize the Back-propagation (BP) neural network in order to build high performance fault diagnostics models. The models were developed using sensor data called dissolved gas data in oil of the power transformer. We validated the models using real sensor data collected from power transformers in China. The results demonstrate that the developed meta heuristic algorithm for optimizing the parameters of the neural network is effective and useful; and machine learning-based models significantly improved the performance and accuracy of fault diagnosis/detection for power transformer PHM. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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15 pages, 690 KiB  
Article
An Electro-Mechanical Actuator Motor Voltage Estimation Method with a Feature-Aided Kalman Filter
by Yujie Zhang, Liansheng Liu, Yu Peng and Datong Liu
Sensors 2018, 18(12), 4190; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18124190 - 29 Nov 2018
Cited by 29 | Viewed by 4122
Abstract
Electro-Mechanical Actuators (EMA) have attracted growing attention with their increasing incorporation in More Electric Aircraft. The performance degradation assessment of EMA needs to be studied, in which EMA motor voltage is an essential parameter, to ensure its reliability and safety of EMA. However, [...] Read more.
Electro-Mechanical Actuators (EMA) have attracted growing attention with their increasing incorporation in More Electric Aircraft. The performance degradation assessment of EMA needs to be studied, in which EMA motor voltage is an essential parameter, to ensure its reliability and safety of EMA. However, deviation exists between motor voltage monitoring data and real motor voltage due to electromagnetic interference. To reduce the deviation, EMA motor voltage estimation generally requires an accurate voltage state equation which is difficult to obtain due to the complexity of EMA. To address this problem, a Feature-aided Kalman Filter (FAKF) method is proposed, in which the state equation is substituted by a physical model of current and voltage. Consequently, voltage state data can be obtained through current monitoring data and a current–voltage model. Furthermore, voltage estimation can be implemented by utilizing voltage state data and voltage monitoring data. To validate the effectiveness of the FAKF-based estimation method, experiments have been conducted based on the published data set from NASA’s Flyable Electro-Mechanical Actuator (FLEA) test stand. The experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method has good performance in EMA motor voltage estimation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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7 pages, 593 KiB  
Communication
Pressure Monitoring Cell for Constrained Battery Electrodes
by Jan Patrick Singer, Christian Sämann, Tobias Gössl and Kai Peter Birke
Sensors 2018, 18(11), 3808; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18113808 - 6 Nov 2018
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4006
Abstract
Testing of improved battery components and new electrochemical energy storage materials in a coin cell format as a test cell is becoming the state of the art. The pressure on the electrode surfaces inside an electrochemical cell is one of the important parameters [...] Read more.
Testing of improved battery components and new electrochemical energy storage materials in a coin cell format as a test cell is becoming the state of the art. The pressure on the electrode surfaces inside an electrochemical cell is one of the important parameters for high ionic/electronic conductivity and the cyclic lifetime. A self-designed pressure monitoring cell allows both applying an adjustable pressure and monitoring the state of charge-dependent cell pressure during cycling. The load cell shows a reciprocal behavior of the temperature sensitivity dependent on the ambient temperature and requires constant temperature conditions while monitoring the cell pressure. Further, dependent on the initial cell pressure, the relaxation time of the assembled pressure monitoring cell must be considered. The present paper describes the setup, the influence of the environment temperature and the mechanical relaxation of the pressure monitoring cell. The first cycling results, using an NCM/graphite coin cell, demonstrate the functionality of the pressure monitoring cell measuring the cell’s pressure as a function of the C-rate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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12 pages, 4212 KiB  
Article
Non-Intrusive Cable Fault Diagnosis Based on Inductive Directional Coupling
by Suyang Hu, Li Wang, Chuang Gao, Bin Zhang, Zhichan Liu and Shanshui Yang
Sensors 2018, 18(11), 3724; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18113724 - 1 Nov 2018
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4075
Abstract
This paper presents and applies an inductive directional coupling technology based on spread spectrum time domain reflectometry (SSTDR) for non-intrusive power cable fault diagnosis. Different from existing capacitive coupling approaches with large signal attenuation, an inductive coupling approach with a capacitive trapper is [...] Read more.
This paper presents and applies an inductive directional coupling technology based on spread spectrum time domain reflectometry (SSTDR) for non-intrusive power cable fault diagnosis. Different from existing capacitive coupling approaches with large signal attenuation, an inductive coupling approach with a capacitive trapper is proposed to restrict the detection signal from transmitting to power source and to eliminate the effect of the power source impedance mismatch. The development, analysis, and implementation of the proposed approach are discussed in detail. A series of simulations and experiments on cables with different fault modes are conducted, along with comparison of existing capacitive coupling, to verify and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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10 pages, 1038 KiB  
Article
Effect of Sensor Set Size on Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Fault Diagnosis
by Lei Mao and Lisa Jackson
Sensors 2018, 18(9), 2777; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092777 - 23 Aug 2018
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3356
Abstract
This paper presents a comparative study on the performance of different sizes of sensor sets on polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell fault diagnosis. The effectiveness of three sizes of sensor sets, including fuel cell voltage only, all the available sensors, and selected [...] Read more.
This paper presents a comparative study on the performance of different sizes of sensor sets on polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell fault diagnosis. The effectiveness of three sizes of sensor sets, including fuel cell voltage only, all the available sensors, and selected optimal sensors in detecting and isolating fuel cell faults (e.g., cell flooding and membrane dehydration) are investigated using the test data from a PEM fuel cell system. Wavelet packet transform and kernel principal component analysis are employed to reduce the dimensions of the dataset and extract features for state classification. Results demonstrate that the selected optimal sensors can provide the best diagnostic performance, where different fuel cell faults can be detected and isolated with good quality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensors for Prognostics and Health Management)
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