Artificial htelligence in Engineering 12 (1998) 135-139

0 1997 Elsevief Science Limited

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved.
pIkSO954-1810(97)00017-4 0954.1810/98/$19,00
ELSEVIER

Dynamic weight estimation using an artificial

neural network
H. B. Bahar
Facuky of Engineering, Tabriz Universi~, Tabriz, Iran

&

D. H. Horrocks*
School of Engineering, Curd@ Wniversity of Wales, PO Box 689, Cardif CF2 STF, UK

(Received 20 January 1997; revised version received 15 March 1997; accepted 6 April 1997)

A Multi-Layer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network is employed to enable the mass

that is applied to a weighing platform to be rapidly and accurately estimated before the
platform has settled to the steady state. This is achieved through training the network
on a set of waveforms resulting from applied masses over the operating range of the
weighing platform. Results are given for both simulated and experimental data that
confirm the success of the method. 0 1997 Elsevier Science Limited.

Key words: Artificial Neural Networks, dynamic weight estimation, Multi-Layer

Perceptron, platform model parameters, real-time system.

1 INTRODUCTION transient effects, and further can be trained on experimental

The application of an object to a weighing platform results
in a transient output waveform which can take a consider-
able time to settle sufficiently to accurately indicate the
weight of the object. Accurate and fast weighing is a wide-
spread requirement in industrial and other applications.‘-7
Various approaches have been proposed to improve the
speed of weighing platforms. These include adaptive
filtering,8*9 in which transient effects are shortened but are
still present. In another approach,“” ’ using non-linear
regression, a second-order dynamic model is fitted to a
short initial segment of the platform output signal From
this the predicted applied mass is output as a parameter.
Here the mass is assumed to be applied as an ideal step,
and that no other dynamic modes of vibration are present.
In this paper the use of an Artificial Neural Network
(ANN) is described for the prediction of the applied mass.
ANNs have been used in other dynamic problems (see, for
example, Ananthraman and Garg” for a simulation study of
a robot control problem). The method can operate on a finite
segment of platform data and therefore has no residual
*Corresponding author. Tel.: ++44 (0) 1222 874000, ext. 5917;
fax: ++44 (0) 1222 874420; e-mail: Horrocks@Cardiff.ac.uk.
135
data which therefore intrinsically include the effects of any
other dynamic modes of vibration.
The Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) Artificial Neural
Network is among the most popular and versatile forms of
ANN classifier. It has been shown that MLP networks with a
single hidden layer and a non-linear activation function are
universal classifiers. 13-i8 The MLP is used in this problem
with backpropagation training. The implementation of an
MLP is described in Pandya and Macy,13 Rumelhart
er al. I4 and Haykin,” for example.
Simulation results demonstrate the potential low
sensitivity of the method to simulated measurement noise.
Results for an ANN operating on experimental data
obtained from an actual weighing platform are given that
confirm that accurate prediction of mass is obtained even
when several modes of vibration are present.
2 WEIGHING SYSTEM MODEL
An ideal weighing platform can be modelled by a mass-
spring-damping structure shown in Fig. 1. It has a typical
underdamped ideal step response as illustrated in Fig. 2. It is
governed by the solution of the following second-order
136 H. B. Bahar, D. H. Horrocks

output
Outpat Layer b

Fig. 1. A model of a weighing platform.

differential equation:

--J-&d
(m(t) + My”(t) + CY’(0 + KY(t) = P(0 (1)
v(n) y(n-I) y(n-N+ I)
where y(t) is the deflection signal obtained from the strain Input
Z-I Z-I ... Z-I
gauge on the weighing machine; m(t) and mp are the y(n)
applied mass and the platform mass respectively; C is the
damping factor; K is the spring constant and g is the Fig. 3. Input-output Artificial Neural Network,
gravitational constant.
For a general applied mass function m(t), this is a non- 3 ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK TECHNIQUE
linear differential equation. However, for commonly
encountered situations m(t) is a step function, which is An input-output model describes a dynamic system based
assumed here. In this case the differential eqn (1) is linear, on input and output data. An input-output model assumes
for which the explicit solution is modelled by a constant that the new system output can be predicted by the past
term plus a transient term which can be underdamped (u), inputs of the system. Further, if the system is supposed to
critically damped (c), or overdamped (0). Thus, be deterministic, time-invariant, single-input-single-output,
the input-output model becomes:
~(0 = 40 + IF&,, t>, F& 6 or F&,, Ol (2)
w(4=f6W,Y(n-l),...,Y(n-N+1)) (3)
and the transient terms for underdamped, critically damped
where y(n) and w(n) represent the input-output pair of the
and overdamped cases are
system at time n, positive integer N is the number of past
F,(qU1 t) = e -qU”q,+in(q,st + ch4) input samples (called the order of the system) and f is a
static non-linear function which maps the past inputs to a
F&,,O=e - qc”G?c2 + qc3o new output. The task of system identification is essentially
and to find suitable mappings which can approximate the
F,(q,, t) = e-q”‘fqo2 + eeqo3’qd mappings implied in a dynamic system. Eqn (3) can be
represented by the block diagram shown in Fig. 3 where
respectively, where the various q parameters are related to
the dynamic weighing system is defined by function f and
the initial platform displacement, bo, initial velocity b ,, the
symbol z -’ in Fig. 3 denotes the time delay between two
platform parameters K, C, mp and the applied mass m(t)
successive samples.”
by the expressions given in the Appendix (see Danaci
A Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) Artificial Neural Network
and Hotrocks” and Danaci”). These expressions have
(ANN) trained with the backpropagation supervised learn-
been used to generate data in the simulation study described
ing method was used to train and test the data obtained both
below.
from the simulation and the real-time system performances.
Sampled data signals are assumed for which t = nT,
where T is the sample interval. Thus, y(t) is written as y(n).

Jlisp1aeemeIIt

10
0
0 20 40 80 80 100
Y I I I I I
Applied mass (kg)
sample, n
Fig. 4. Simulated performance of the trained ANN with noise-free
Fig. 2. A typical step response of a weighing platform. patterns.
 Dynamic weight estimation using artificial neural network 137

-0.001 I ’
Applied mass (kg) -0.0015 Applied mass (kg}

Fig. 5. Error between applied and estimated masses in Fig. 4. Fig. 7. Error performance for experimental data.

As is well known, backpropagation learning involves
using an iterative gradient descent algorithm to minimise
the mean square error between the actual outputs of the
network and the desired outputs in response to given
inputs.20 The following steps are involved in constructing
and training an MLP network:
(i) Defining the structure of the network (the number of
layers and the number of neurones in each layer);
(ii) Selecting the learning parameters (learning rate and
momentum rate);
(iii) Initialising the connection coefficients;
(iv) Selecting an input-output pair from the training
examples set and presenting it to the network;
(v) Calculating the output values of the neurones in the
hidden and output layers;
(vi) Comparing the output values of the network with
the desired output values and calculating the output
errors;
(vii) Adjusting the connection coefficients of the
network in order to decrease the output errors;
(viii) Repeating steps (iv) to (vii) until the error is
acceptable or a predefined number of iterations is
completed.
In backpropagation, training is performed by forward and
backward operations. In the forward operation, the network
produces its actual outputs for a certain input pattern using
the current connection coefficients. Subsequently, the back-
ward operation is carried out to alter the coefficients to
decrease the error between the actual and desired outputs.
4 SIMULATED PERFORMANCE

The Artificial Neural Network estimation architecture of

Fig. 3 is used for simulation purposes. The ANN was trained
to emulate the dynamic behaviour of the weighing system,
so that output w(n) is an estimate of the applied mass m(t).
Suitable specifications for the ANN model as illustrated in
Fig. 3 were found to be:

l Number of input samples y(n),..., y(n - N + l), is

taken as N = 200.

Applied mass (kg) 0.9 -(a) W

is 0.6
8 - @)X&I
(a)
g 0.7 -63 2okg

E- 0.6 -WI 104

'E:
2 0.5
:
n 0.4
2
E" 0.3

ii 0.2

0.1
Applied mass (kg)
0

-0.1
w Sample n
Fig. 6. Simulated recalling results with 2% noisy patterns: (a) for Fig. 8. Experimental weighing platform waveforms for applied
seen applied masses; (b) for unseen applied masses. masses of lo-40 kg.
138 H. B. Bahar. D. H. Horrocks
Number of output samples w(n) is 1.
Number of layers are 3: an input layer, a hidden
layer and an output layer.
Total number of neurones are 301: 200 neurones at
the input layer, 100 neurones at the hidden layer,
and a single neurone at the output layer.
Momentum rate is 0.95.
Learning rate is 0.50.
A set of 100 patterns is used for ANN training and
recalling. Each input pattern is composed of the first 200
samples, y(n), . . . ,y(n - 199), following the application of
the mass to the platform. The input patterns for training and
recalling were generated by C + + programming language
to simulate eqn (2). The weighing platform parameters in all
simulations are K = 1000 N/mm, C = 50 Ns/mm, np =
0 kg, g = 10 m/s2, sampling interval t, = 0.02 ms, initial
platform displacement bo = 0 mm, initial velocity bl =
0 mm/s. Applied masses were uniformly chosen to cover
the range m(t) = 1,2,. . . , 100 kg. For the platform parameters
given, only the underdamped expression, F,(q,,t) in eqn (2)
was required.
An Artificial Neural Network was trained by applying the
noise-free patterns where the training procedure was as
explained in the previous section. The performance of the
trained ANN is illustrated in Fig. 4. The simulation indicates
a linear relationship between applied mass m(t) and
estimated output mass w(n). Fig. 5 shows the error in the
linearity of Fig. 4 and indicates an RMS error and average
noise error of 0.0772 kg and 0.1187% between applied and
estimated masses respectively. These simulation results
show that the ANN is able to accurately model the non-
linear relationship between platform time series data and
corresponding applied mass.
For Artificial Neural Network recall purposes, the seen
and unseen input patterns were contaminated by uniformly
distributed random simulated measurement noise with an
amplitude of 2% of the steady state mass. Then the patterns
are applied to the aforementioned trained ANN with the
architecture shown in Fig. 3 to obtain the estimated output
mass values, w(n). The simulation results for recalling the
seen and unseen input patterns are shown in Fig. 6. Table 1
provides the overall RMS and average noise error of the
training and recalling performances. The RMS error of
the unseen data is 0.4534 kg, which is a negligible
increase of 0.0326 kg compared to the RMS error for
the seen noisy data. The effect of the contaminated
noise with the amplitude of 2% results in small average
errors of 0.5641% and 0.4593% on estimated seen and
unseen masses respectively. These verify that a beneficial
‘noise averaging’ is performed by the Artificial Neural
Network.
Table 1. Simulated training and recalling errors
Patterns RMS error (kg) Average error
Training 0.4208 0.5641%
Recalling 0.4534 0.4593%
Table 2. Experimental training and recalling errors
Patterns RMS error (kg) Average error
Training 0.0487 0.1442%
Recalling 0.4782 1.3470%
5 EXPERIMENTAL PERFORMANCE
In this section training and recalling processes of the Artificial
Neural Network are reported using experimental data which
were obtained from an industrial weighing platform. The
weighing platform has dimensions of 55.50 cm, 50.50 cm
and 16.50 cm for length, width and height, respectively,
with a nominal full scale taken to be about 100 kg.
An Artificial Neural Network was trained with experi-
mental time series patterns. For each of a sequence of
applied masses, 200 samples were taken in the transient
region immediately following the application of the mass
to the platform with uniform sampling intervals of 2 ms.
Thus, the overall time to produce an estimated output for
each applied mass is 400 ms. Here the sequence of applied
masses was taken to be 5-45 kg in steps of 1 kg, except for
the specific values of masses used for recall purposes below.
The resulting error performance of the trained ANN in a
laboratory noisy environment for various masses is
illustrated in Fig. 7. Sources of noise may include signal
interference and any higher modes of platform vibration.
To test the ability of the Artificial Neural Network at
recalling, time series experimental patterns were obtained
that were unseen, i.e. not used for the training of the
Artificial Neural Network. The masses were 10, 20, 30
and 40 kg. To conform to a more realistic use of a weighing
platform these masses were applied with less care than for
the training data. That is, the masses were dropped onto the
platform from a height of typically 2 cm. Fig. 8 shows the
response waveforms produced.
Table 2 shows the overall errors for both the experimental
training data and recall data. As expected, the recall data
errors are higher because the masses were applied in a more
realistic fashion. Even so, the errors are relatively small
considering that the weights are estimated dynamically,
long before the waveforms have settled to steady state.
For recalling, the unseen experimental data patterns were
applied as an input to the trained Artificial Neural Network.
The ANN estimated masses of the applied input patterns for
the unseen masses are tabulated in Table 3. The estimated
masses show that accurately predicted masses can be
achieved when several modes of vibration are present in
the patterns of the unseen applied masses.
Table 3. Experimental recalling results of the unseen masses
Applied mass to the Estimated mass Error between
weighing platform of the ANN (kg) applied and estimated
(kg) masses (kg)
10 9.8814 0.1186
20 19.8137 0.1863
30 30.1190 0.1190
40 40.923 1 0.9230
 Dynamic weight estimation using artljicial neural network 139

6 CONCLUSION 17. Hartman, K., Keeler, J. D. and Kowalski, J. M., Layered

It has been shown that an Artificial Neural Network tech-
nique can be used for the rapid prediction of an applied mass
in a noisy environment while the weighing platform is still
in the transient mode. This has been done for both simulated
and experimental data. The obtained results are successful
and encouraging.
Neural Networks with Gaussian hidden units as universal
approximation. Neural Computation, 1990, 2, 210-215.
18. Homik, K., Stinchcombe, M. and White, H., Multilayer feed-
forward networks are universal approximators. Neural
Networks, 1989, 2, 359-366.
19. Pham, D. T. and Liu, X., Neural Networks for Identification,
Prediction and Control, 2nd edn. Springer-Verlag, London,
UK, 1995.
20. Masters, T., Practical Neural Network Recipes in C++.
Boston, Academic Press, 1993.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
APPENDIX
The co-operation of W. & T. Avery Ltd in providing Here the model parameters are defined for the weighing
access to a weighing platform is gratefully acknowledged. system platform constants K and C, the applied mass m(t),
Thanks are due to Dr M. Danaci and Dr B. G. Cetiner for the platform mass mp, the initial platform displacement bO,
useful discussions while at The School of Engineering, and initial velocity b , . This is done for the underdamped (u),
Cardiff University of Wales, UK. critically damped (c) and overdamped (0) cases, respectively.

Underdamped (u) case:

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40 = (m(t) + m&g/K
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2wd