Data-driven Soft Sensors in the Process Industry

In the last two decades Soft Sensors established themselves as a valuable alternative to the traditional means for the acquisition of critical process variables, process monitoring and other tasks which are related to process control. This paper discusses characteristics of the process industry data which are critical for the development of data-driven Soft Sensors. These characteristics are common to a large number of process industry fields, like the chemical industry, bioprocess industry, steel industry, etc. The focus of this work is put on the data-driven Soft Sensors because of their growing popularity, already demonstrated usefulness and huge, though yet not completely realised, potential. A comprehensive selection of case studies covering the three most important Soft Sensor application fields, a general introduction to the most popular Soft Sensor modelling techniques as well as a discussion of some open issues in the Soft Sensor development and maintenance and their possible solutions are the main contributions of this work

A survey of outlier detection methodologies

Outlier detection has been used for centuries to detect and, where appropriate, remove anomalous observations from data. Outliers arise due to mechanical faults, changes in system behaviour, fraudulent behaviour, human error, instrument error or simply through natural deviations in populations. Their detection can identify system faults and fraud before they escalate with potentially catastrophic consequences. It can identify errors and remove their contaminating effect on the data set and as such to purify the data for processing. The original outlier detection methods were arbitrary but now, principled and systematic techniques are used, drawn from the full gamut of Computer Science and Statistics. In this paper, we introduce a survey of contemporary techniques for outlier detection. We identify their respective motivations and distinguish their advantages and disadvantages in a comparative review

Comparison of different classification algorithms for fault detection and fault isolation in complex systems

Due to the lack of sufficient results seen in literature, feature extraction and classification methods of hydraulic systems appears to be somewhat challenging. This paper compares the performance of three classifiers (namely linear support vector machine (SVM), distance-weighted k-nearest neighbor (WKNN), and decision tree (DT) using data from optimized and non-optimized sensor set solutions. The algorithms are trained with known data and then tested with unknown data for different scenarios characterizing faults with different degrees of severity. This investigation is based solely on a data-driven approach and relies on data sets that are taken from experiments on the fuel system. The system that is used throughout this study is a typical fuel delivery system consisting of standard components such as a filter, pump, valve, nozzle, pipes, and two tanks. Running representative tests on a fuel system are problematic because of the time, cost, and reproduction constraints involved in capturing any significant degradation. Simulating significant degradation requires running over a considerable period; this cannot be reproduced quickly and is costly

Data-based fault detection in chemical processes: Managing records with operator intervention and uncertain labels

Developing data-driven fault detection systems for chemical plants requires managing uncertain data labels and dynamic attributes due to operator-process interactions. Mislabeled data is a known problem in computer science that has received scarce attention from the process systems community. This work introduces and examines the effects of operator actions in records and labels, and the consequences in the development of detection models. Using a state space model, this work proposes an iterative relabeling scheme for retraining classifiers that continuously refines dynamic attributes and labels. Three case studies are presented: a reactor as a motivating example, flooding in a simulated de-Butanizer column, as a complex case, and foaming in an absorber as an industrial challenge. For the first case, detection accuracy is shown to increase by 14% while operating costs are reduced by 20%. Moreover, regarding the de-Butanizer column, the performance of the proposed strategy is shown to be 10% higher than the filtering strategy. Promising results are finally reported in regard of efficient strategies to deal with the presented problemPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Fault Diagnosis and Failure Prognostics of Lithium-ion Battery based on Least Squares Support Vector Machine and Memory Particle Filter Framework

123456A novel data driven approach is developed for fault diagnosis and remaining useful life (RUL) prognostics for lithium-ion batteries using Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) and Memory-Particle Filter (M-PF). Unlike traditional data-driven models for capacity fault diagnosis and failure prognosis, which require multidimensional physical characteristics, the proposed algorithm uses only two variables: Energy Efficiency (EE), and Work Temperature. The aim of this novel framework is to improve the accuracy of incipient and abrupt faults diagnosis and failure prognosis. First, the LSSVM is used to generate residual signal based on capacity fade trends of the Li-ion batteries. Second, adaptive threshold model is developed based on several factors including input, output model error, disturbance, and drift parameter. The adaptive threshold is used to tackle the shortcoming of a fixed threshold. Third, the M-PF is proposed as the new method for failure prognostic to determine Remaining Useful Life (RUL). The M-PF is based on the assumption of the availability of real-time observation and historical data, where the historical failure data can be used instead of the physical failure model within the particle filter. The feasibility of the framework is validated using Li-ion battery prognostic data obtained from the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Prognostic Center of Excellence (PCoE). The experimental results show the following: (1) fewer data dimensions for the input data are required compared to traditional empirical models; (2) the proposed diagnostic approach provides an effective way of diagnosing Li-ion battery fault; (3) the proposed prognostic approach can predict the RUL of Li-ion batteries with small error, and has high prediction accuracy; and, (4) the proposed prognostic approach shows that historical failure data can be used instead of a physical failure model in the particle filter

Multi-fault diagnosis for rolling element bearings based on intrinsic mode function screening and optimized least squares support vector machine

Multi-fault diagnosis of rolling element bearing is significant to avoid serious accidents and huge economic losses effectively. However, due to the vibration signal with the character of nonstationarity and nonlinearity, the detection, extraction and classification of the fault feature turn into a challenging task. This paper presents a novel method based on redundant second generation wavelet packet transform (RSGWPT), ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and optimized least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) for fault diagnosis of rolling element bearings. Firstly, this method implements an analysis combining RSGWPT-EEMD to extract the crucial characteristics from the measured signal to identify the running state of rolling element bearings, the vibration signal is adaptively decomposed into a number of modified intrinsic mode functions (modified IMFs) by two step screening processes based on the energy ratio; secondly, the matrix is formed by different level modified IMFs and singular value decomposition (SVD) is used to decompose the matrix to obtain singular value as eigenvector; finally, singular values are input to LSSVM optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO) in the feature space to specify the fault type. The effectiveness of the proposed multi-fault diagnosis technique is demonstrated by applying it to both simulated signals and practical bearing vibration signals under different conditions. The results show that the proposed method is effective for the condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of rolling element bearings

Consistency Index-Based Sensor Fault Detection System for Nuclear Power Plant Emergency Situations Using an LSTM Network

A nuclear power plant (NPP) consists of an enormous number of components with complex interconnections. Various techniques to detect sensor errors have been developed to monitor the state of the sensors during normal NPP operation, but not for emergency situations. In an emergency situation with a reactor trip, all the plant parameters undergo drastic changes following the sudden decrease in core reactivity. In this paper, a machine learning model adopting a consistency index is suggested for sensor error detection during NPP emergency situations. The proposed consistency index refers to the soundness of the sensors based on their measurement accuracy. The application of consistency index labeling makes it possible to detect sensor error immediately and specify the particular sensor where the error occurred. From a compact nuclear simulator, selected plant parameters were extracted during typical emergency situations, and artificial sensor errors were injected into the raw data. The trained system successfully generated output that gave both sensor error states and error-free states

Predictive Maintenance on the Machining Process and Machine Tool

This paper presents the process required to implement a data driven Predictive Maintenance (PdM) not only in the machine decision making, but also in data acquisition and processing. A short review of the different approaches and techniques in maintenance is given. The main contribution of this paper is a solution for the predictive maintenance problem in a real machining process. Several steps are needed to reach the solution, which are carefully explained. The obtained results show that the Preventive Maintenance (PM), which was carried out in a real machining process, could be changed into a PdM approach. A decision making application was developed to provide a visual analysis of the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of the machining tool. This work is a proof of concept of the methodology presented in one process, but replicable for most of the process for serial productions of pieces