2019 5th International Conference on Control, Automation and Robotics
Automated Machine Tool Prognostics for Turning Operation using Acoustic
Emission and Learning Vector Quantization
1
M. Arslan, 2K. Kamal, 3M. Fahad, 4Senthan Mathavan, 5M. A Khan
1,2,5
National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
3
University of Management and Technology, Pakistan
4
Nottingham Trent University, UK
e-mail: muhammad.arslan86@mts.ceme.edu.pk, khurram.kamal@pnec.nust.edu.pk, engr.fahad.air@gmail.com,
s.mathavan@ieee.org, makhan267@gmail.com
Abstract—Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machines are
vital need of every manufacturing industry from small to large
scale. Machine breakdown time or bad machining costs
significantly with respect to time, quality and possible human
labor injury that can be avoided by devising automated
machine and tool condition monitoring systems to adapt
automated preventive maintenance. This research is envisioned
to device online tool condition monitoring system for CNC
machine using airborne acoustic emission; a cheap yet highly
accurate tool state prognostic scheme. Learning Vector
Quantization (LVQ) neural network is trained on seven
statistical features for two different types of machining
materials (Aluminum and Mild Steel) with Carbide tool tip.
Training accuracies of 95.33% and 94.33% are achieved with
the proposed design for the two trails. The experimentation
delivered promising industrial oriented performance scores
with an efficient applicability.
Keywords-CNC machine; LVQ; airborne AE; new tool; used
tool; worn-out tool
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the key drivers of advanced manufacturing
industries are Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machines.
CNC machines are well known industrial equipment with the
benefits of being accurate, faster and robust than the human
labor. According to Grand View Research, by 2025, the
market share of CNC machine manufacturing industry will
be around 100.9 billion USD with compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) of 6.8% [1]. Automotive, power, textile and
many other industries have opted to use lathe, milling, laser,
grinding, welding, winding and other CNC machines for
required processes. Due to high-end and extensive machining
processes, these machines require proper monitoring and
maintenance. Negligence in the scheduled maintenance can
cause fatal damages to the machine parts or its operator,
leading to breakdown maintenance. Both the breakdown
maintenance and offline (scheduled) maintenance requires
machine downtime that penalizes in the form of increased
production cost and time while the machine itself suffers
with the rapid degradation eventually causing shorter
lifespan. In order to avoid machine downtime for offline
maintenance, online machine maintenance techniques should
be used that are capable of monitoring the machine
conditions in real-time without turning off the machine.
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Machine tool condition (health) monitoring is one of the
primary machine condition monitoring procedure as the tool
directly interacts with the work-piece. Severely degraded or
damaged tool will adversely affect the work-piece finishing
quality and can cause severe damage to the operator. Online
tool health monitoring will not only reduce the
manufacturing process cost, time and injury hazards but will
also enable to statistically access the particular tool material
performance for the specific operation.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Tool condition monitoring (TCM) can be divided into
two major sorts as per sensor mounting methods, stated as,
structural borne and airborne techniques. Structural-borne
techniques use machining in-process induced signals, for
instance, vibration, temperature, cutting force, motor current
signals and structural-borne acoustic emissions. Vibration
signals are mainly acquired by mounting accelerometer
closer to either the tool or the work-piece. Sevilla et.al [2]
and [3] acquired vibration signals during CNC milling
process whereas, [4] acquired vibration signals during CNC
turning operation for TCM. In the common observation
greater the tool wear is, greater will be the vibration signal
amplitude. Acquiring signals through this method is
relatively cheaper, but could get affected by idle machine
vibrations while the placement of the sensor and machine
cutting lubrication highly affects the vibration signal
propagation [5]. Similarly, [6] and [7] used cutting force
signal to classify tool condition for CNC turning operation
while, [8] used cutting force for TCM in CNC milling
operations. Generally, dynamometer is used to acquire
cutting force while the signal’s intensity gradually increases
as the tool degrades. Cutting force based TCM systems are
fairly accurate for fine-tiped tools, whereas, milling process
could get affected by sensor deployment itself [9] and
industrial grade dynamometers are expensive TCM solutions
[10]. With the increase in cutting force the CNC motor
power requirmenets increse that leads to more current
consumptions; TCM methods based on this phenomena are
also used in the literature. Motor current sensing based TCM
systems were proposed by [11] for milling operation whereas,
[12], [13] used it for turning operation. However, this
method is suitable for low spindle speed operations [14] and
small CNC machines [15]. Mostly, structural-bourne TCM
 methods are affected by machine vibrations and have costly IV. LEARNING VECTOR QUANTIZATION (LVQ)
implimentations. On the other hand air-bourne acoustic ALGORITHM
emission (AE) sensor based methods are equally acurate,
Unlike LVQ predecessors, Vector Quantization (VQ) and
cheap and hinder no machining parameters [16]. [17] used
Self Organizing Maps (SOM), it is a supervised
airborne acoustic emissions in milling operation, [18] used
classification and pattern identification technique [22]. Fig. 2
airborne AE during turning operation and [19] used AE for
shows the generic architecture of LVQ algorithm. Input
drilling operation on CNC machine. Due to airborne AE
feature vectors are fed to hidden layer, called competitive
sensor based TCM systems inexpensivness, contactlessness
layer, that learns to distinguish the classes same as SOM. If
and robutness to machine vibrations, this method is highly
the input feature vector and respective weight vector of
appreciated but it gets affected by environmental noise which
the winning output node have the same target class then
makes the process bit tricky. There are some hybrid sensors
new weight ∆ will be updated as
based approaches which used multiple sensors for TCM,
such as, [20] and [21] which have good reported accuracies
but high complexities. ∆ = ( − ) (1)

III. PROPOSED TECHNIQUE Whereas, if the input feature vector and respective
weight vector of the winning output node have the
In order to perform intended experimentation for TCM different target class then new weight ∆ will be updated as
system, turning operations has been performed on CNC
turning type lathe machine. For data acquisition, a typical
∆ =− ( − ) (2)
microphone has been used as airborne AE signal sensor. AE
signals are then preprocessed to obtain statistical features,
where is learning rate. While linear layer converts hidden
which are then fed to Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ)
layer target classes back to labelled targets fed as inputs.
algorithm as inputs. The algorithm has been trained after
setting up the desired number of epochs and learning rate.
Training has been set to halt once the desired number epochs
are achieved, later, the network has been tested to predict the
tool health tri-categorically. Fig. 1 demonstrates the
comprehensive design flow diagram of the proposed TCM
system wherein CNC turning operation signals have been
acquired for different tool states and work-piece materials
through acoustic emission sensor. Obtained signals have
been converted to time domain statistical features and then
Figure 2. Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) algorithm architecture [23].
(trail-wise) fed to LVQ after initializing relevant parameters.
Algorithm Training has been done till the desired epochs
V. EXPERIMENTATION SETUP
have reached and final weights have been saved. In the end,
the trained network has been tested to predict tool categories A. Experimental Configuration
as a validation step. Denford Cyclone-P CNC turning machine has been used
to conduct experiments at Industrial Automation Lab of
college of EME, National University of Sciences and
Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan. Fig. 3 shows the setup of
experimentation where Aluminum work-piece is ready to be
machined while Carbide tool tip has been set at tool holder to
perform the experiment and standard microphone is placed in
proximity to the machining operation to acquire AE signals
with minimum background noise. Table I shows set
machining parameters.
TABLE I. CONFIGURED MACHINING PARAMETERS FOR CNC TURNING

Machining Parameter Set Value

Revolution/min (rev/min) 1500

Feed rate (mm/min) 200

Depth of cut (mm) 1

Figure 1. Proposed design flow.

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 out (red) tools are visible. Evidently green has minimal,
yellow has moderate and red has maximum amplitudes.

Figure 3. Experimentation and data acquisition setup.

Two trails have been performed, comprised of using a
single tool tip material (Carbide) with two types of work-
piece materials (Aluminum and Mild Steel). Aluminum is
soft metal while mild steel is comparatively hard alloy. In
both trails, three states of carbide tool tips are used that are
categorized as New tool, Used tool and Worn-out tool. In
New tool category; unused (new) carbide tool tip has been
used, in Used tool category; used Carbide tool tip has been
utilized whereas, in worn-out tool category; fractured carbide
tool tip has been used. In Trail-1 aluminum work-piece has
been used with three states of Carbide tool tip while in Trail-
2 Mild Steel has been machined respectively. Standard
microphone has been used for AE signals acquisition with
the advantage of being cheap and relatively robust data
acquisition setup. Fig. 4 shows the configuration of
experimentation which illustrates the experiment distribution
scheme with single tool material and two types of work-
pieces; Aluminum (Trail-1) and Mild Steel (Trail-2), each
having three tool states.
Figure 5. Samples of recorded signals for Trail-1 displaying three
categories temporal amplitudes.
Figure 6. Sample of recorded signals for Trail-2 displaying three categories
temporal amplitudes.
C. Time Domain Statistical Features Extraction
The recorded signals are then preprocessed in
MATLAB® to be chopped into smaller parts using window
method. Then, these arrays are converted into statistical
features for each category among both trails. 115 statistical
feature per category has been acquired making 345 indexes
per trail. 48510 data samples (comprised of 1.1 seconds
duration) are squashed to form single statistical feature index,
altogether approximately 16.7 million samples have been
utilized per trail. Time domain based seven statistical
features are extracted namely; Mean, Kurtosis, Root Mean
Square (RMS), Skewness, Standard Deviation (Std) and
Peak to Peak (P2P) values. Fig. 7 illustrates the statistical
features split scheme where each statistical feature is denoted
by SF.

Figure 4. Categorization of experimentation performed.

B. Data Acquisition
For data acquisition purpose, market accessible
microphone with sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz has been
used to acquire airborne AE signals of the turning process to
meet the Nyquist criteria as the signals lie in the range of
20Hz to 20kHz (human audible range). The AE signals are Figure 7. Statistical features split scheme for both trails.
recorded in laptop’s hard drive using Windows® 10 stock
voice recorder. For each trail, three recordings per tool D. Designing TCM System
condition has been saved. In total, 6 recordings are taken; Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) neural network has
three for each trail, that are, each for a tool condition. Fig. 5 been used as a core of proposed TCM system. For each trail,
and Fig. 6 show the recorded signals samples for both trails separate TCM system has been designed with the intention
wherein; amplitude of new (green), used (yellow), and worn- to classify tool condition tri-categorically using MATLAB®

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 Script. For both trails, individually, the statistical feature
sets have been fed to the LVQ network. Data split scheme
for training and validation has been fixed 85% and 15%.
Network training has been done with various variations of
number of hidden layers, epochs and learning rates. Table II
shows the minimum and maximum values of the
corresponding parameters used during each trail training.
After each trail training, trained network has been validated
on 15% of the dataset.
B. Trail 2: Mild Steel Work-Piece
Trail-2 has given best training accuracy at 370th epoch
with 21 hidden layers and 0.1 learning rate. The confusion
matrix with performance scores is shown in Table IV. The
overall achieved training accuracy for all three classes is
94.33% with validation accuracy 93.33%. Fig. 9 illustrates
Mean Square Error (MSE) 0.0378 for training at 370th epoch.
TABLE IV. RESULTED CONFUSION MATRIX AND PERFORMANCE SCORES
FOR TRAIL-2

TABLE II TRAINING PARAMETER MIN AND MAX VALUES Ground Truth (GT)
Training Parameter Min Value Max Value P Precision

Predicted (P)
New Used Worn-out
Values (%)
Epochs 1 500 New 86 0 2 88 97.7
Hidden Layers 1 50 Used 6 99 0 105 94.3
Initial Learning Rate 0.001 0.1 Worn-out 8 1 98 107 91.6
GT Values 100 100 100 300
Recall (%) 86 99 98
VI. REULTS AND DISCUSSION
As mentioned earlier, two trails have been individually
conducted in the experimentation for TCM both with three
tool health levels; New, Used and Worn-out tools. In both
trails Carbide tool tip has been used whereas Trail-1 has been
machined on Aluminum work-piece and Trail-2 has been
machined on Mild Steel. Both work-pieces are highly
industry oriented materials with Aluminum being softer and
lighter while Mild Steel being harder and heavier.
A. Trail 1: Aluminum Work-Piece
Trail-1 has given best training accuracy at 237th epoch
with 23 hidden layers and 0.1 learning rate. The confusion
matrix with performance scores is shown in Table III. The
overall achieved training accuracy for all three classes is Figure 9. Mean Square Error (MSE) convergence graph for Trial-2.
95.33% and validation accuracy is 95.00%. Fig. 8 illustrates
Mean Square Error (MSE) 0.0311 for training at 237th epoch. It has been observed that Trail-1 has slightly better
TABLE III. RESULTED CONFUSION MATRIX AND PERFORMANCE SCORES results than Trail-2. One of the reasons for Trail-1 better
FOR TRAIL-1
performance scores is that the adjusted machining
parameters were ideal for Aluminum work-piece, on the
Ground Truth (GT)
other hand, these machining parameters were not optimally
P Precision
suitable for mild steel (Trail-2) but for the sake of
Predicted (P)

New Used Worn-out

Values (%)
New 100 8 0 108 92.6 standardized experimentation criteria the machining
Used 0 92 6 98 93.9 parameters have been kept the same; which affected the
Worn-out 0 0 94 94 100 inter-classes AE signals covariance for the training data.
GT Values 100 100 100 300
Recall (%) 100 92 94 VII. CONCLUTION AND FUTURE WORK
This study is intended to use airborne acoustic emission
of CNC turning operation to predict three states of tool
degradation levels for two different kinds of work-pieces
machined with Carbide tool tip. In two trails, LVQ neural
network has been trained for this purpose to which seven
statistical features of three classes have been fed as inputs.
Trail-1 yielded 95.33% training accuracy while Trail-2 gave
94.33% training accuracy. These performance scores depict
affective use of airborne AE with LVQ network, whereas,
the experiment gained high level of performance with cheap
data acquisition setup. In the future work, TCM system for
different kinds of work-piece materials and tool tips could be
Figure 8. Mean Square Error (MSE) convergence graph for Trial-1. added while more complex machine learning algorithms

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