Defects on the surface of rolling bearing elements are some of the most frequent causes of malfunctions and breakages of rotating machines. Defect detection in rolling bearings via techniques that examine changes in measured signal is a very important topic of research due to increasing demands for quality and reliability. In this paper, incipient defect identification method based on adaptive lifting scheme packet is proposed. Adaptive lifting scheme packet operators which adapt to the signal characteristic are constructed. The shock pulse value in defect sensitive frequency band is used as the defect indicator to identify the defect location and severity of rolling bearing. The proposed defect identification method is applied to analyze the experimental signal from rolling bearing with incipient inner raceway defect. The result confirms that the proposed method is accurate and robust in rolling bearing incipient defect identification
