Anomaly Detection Using Autoencoder Reconstruction upon Industrial Motors.

Journal: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
Published Date:

Abstract

Rotary machine breakdown detection systems are outdated and dependent upon routine testing to discover faults. This is costly and often reactive in nature. Real-time monitoring offers a solution for detecting faults without the need for manual observation. However, manual interpretation for threshold anomaly detection is often subjective and varies between industrial experts. This approach is ridged and prone to a large number of false positives. To address this issue, we propose a machine learning (ML) approach to model normal working operations and detect anomalies. The approach extracts key features from signals representing a known normal operation to model machine behaviour and automatically identify anomalies. The ML learns generalisations and generates thresholds based on fault severity. This provides engineers with a traffic light system where green is normal behaviour, amber is worrying and red signifies a machine fault. This scale allows engineers to undertake early intervention measures at the appropriate time. The approach is evaluated on windowed real machine sensor data to observe normal and abnormal behaviour. The results demonstrate that it is possible to detect anomalies within the amber range and raise alarms before machine failure.

Authors

  • Sean Givnan
    School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Byrom Street, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK.
  • Carl Chalmers
    Liverpool John Moores University, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Data Science Research Centre, Department of Computer Science, Byron Street, Liverpool, L3 3AF, United Kingdom. Electronic address: C.Chalmers@ljmu.ac.uk.
  • Paul Fergus
    Applied Computing Research Group, Liverpool John Moores University, Byrom Street, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK.
  • Sandra Ortega-Martorell
    School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Liverpool John Moores University, 3 Byrom Street, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK.
  • Tom Whalley
    Central Group, Kitling Road, Knowsley Business Park, Liverpool L34 9JA, UK.