Gear Fault Detection Method Based on Convex Hull Clustering of Autoencoder’s Latent Space

Abstract

This paper presents a method of pitting failure detection in toothed gears based on the reconstruction of the gear case vibrational signal. The effectiveness of the proposed method was tested in an experiment on a power circulation test stand. The autoencoder deep neural network architecture, semi-supervised training, and validation, along with the latent data convex hull-based clustering, are presented. The proposed method offers high efficiency (0.99 F1-measure) in gear state prediction (100% in failure detection, 98.9% in normal state prediction) and provides more capabilities in terms of generalization in comparison with linear machine learning techniques such as principal component analysis and nonlinear like the generative adversarial network. Moreover, it is distinguished by high sensitivity while also being able to detect even slight surface damage (initial pitting). These findings will be of particular relevance to a range of scientists and practitioners working with gear drives who are willing to implement machine learning in signal processing and diagnosis.