A fault diagnosis model based on singular value manifold features, optimized SVMs and multi-sensor information fusion

To achieve better fault diagnosis of rotating machinery, this paper presents a novel intelligent fault diagnosis model based on singular value manifold features (SVMF), optimized support vector machines (SVMs) and multi-sensor information fusion. Firstly, a new fault feature named SVMF is developed to better represent faults. SVMF is acquired by extracting manifold topology features of the singular spectrum. Compared with frequently-used fault features, the feature scale of SVMF is constant for variable rotating speed, and the extraction process of SVMF also has the effect of self-weighting. So SVMF has a better representation of faults. Then, to select optimal parameters for model training of SVMs, an improved fruit fly algorithm is proposed by introducing a guidance search mechanism and enhanced local search operation, and as a result both the convergence speed and accuracy are improved. Finally, the Dempster–Shafer evidence theory is introduced to fuse decision-level information from SVM models of multiple sensors. Information fusion eliminates the conflict of conclusions on fault diagnosis from multiple sensors, which leads to high robustness and accuracy of the fault diagnosis model. As a summary, the proposed method combines the advantages of SVMF in fault representation, SVMs in fault identification and the Dempster–Shafer evidence theory in information fusion, and as a result the proposed method will perform better at fault diagnosis. The proposed intelligent fault diagnosis model is subsequently applied to fault diagnosis of the gearbox. Experimental results show that the proposed diagnostic framework is versatile at detecting faults accurately.