Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-023-09150-3(0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().
,- volV)

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Robot arm damage detection using vibration data and deep learning
Getachew Ambaye1 • Enkhsaikhan Boldsaikhan1 • Krishna Krishnan1

Received: 20 June 2023 / Accepted: 17 October 2023 / Published online: 15 November 2023
This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2023

Abstract
During robot operation, robot components like links and joints may experience collisions or excess loads that can lead to
structural damages or cracks. A crack in a structural component can degrade the overall performance of the structure. This
study examines the influence of cracks on the vibration characteristics of a baseline robot link. The approach uses the finite
element method to simulate the dynamics of planar robot link models with and without artificial cracks with different sizes,
locations, and orientations in the ABAQUS software. The robot link models include one intact model and five defective
models with cracks. A rectangular crack with a fixed length of 1 mm and a varying width from 0.001 to 0.1 mm is applied
to a specific location along the robot link. Finite element analysis and machine learning are used to simulate and
characterize the vibration of each robot link with one fixed end and one free end. The vibration responses are measured at
the free end. The measured vibration data are then transformed into two-dimensional (2D) image data using the Gramian
Angular Summation Field method. A convolutional neural network is then trained with the image data for crack detection
and analysis. The results indicate that the proposed method demonstrates 98.25% accuracy on the data generated by the
simulation experiments.

Keywords Vibration characterization  Convolutional neural network  Robot health monitoring  Deep learning

1 Introduction Damaged or defective load-bearing components can com-

An industrial robot consists of links and joints as main
structural components that define its overall geometry as
well as the motion range in which the robot can operate.
During robot operation with external loads, these structural
components experience elastic deflections or perhaps even
damages by causing unexpected variations or spatiotem-
poral uncertainties in robot operation performances [1, 2].
Industrial robots are designed to complement humans in
handling repetitive and hazardous tasks in harsh production
environments like furnaces, grinders, and welding stations.
& Getachew Ambaye
gaambaye@shockers.wichita.edu
Enkhsaikhan Boldsaikhan
enkhsaikhan.boldsaikhan@wichita.edu
Krishna Krishnan
krishna.krishnan@wichita.edu
1
Department of Industrial, Systems and Manufacturing
Engineering, Wichita State University, 1845 Fairmount St.,
Wichita, KS 67260, USA
promise the robot’s structural integrity and reduce its pre-
cision and safety.
To improve the overall performance and lifespan of
robot structural components, researchers have been devel-
oping various structural health monitoring methods. Early
detection of structural failures is critical to mend poor
performances or prevent severe damages. In the first place,
it is essential to avoid excessive forces and collisions that
cause structural damages. However, in industrial settings, it
is challenging to maintain a fully controlled workspace.
Therefore, it is crucial to know the intactness of robot
structural components. Vibration diagnostics can be one
way of identifying the intactness of robot structural com-
ponents. Hence, this study focuses on the vibration char-
acterization of a baseline robot link via numerical
simulation with the intent to recognize potential formations
of structural damages in robot links.
Robotic systems are susceptible to a range of different
types of faults. Experimental data and system models are
the two commonly used methods for detecting these faults.
A model-based fault detection has been implemented in
robotic systems using different algorithms [3]. However,

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accurately detecting faults can be challenging due to the
nonlinear parameters of the models, which arise from
geometrical, material, and loading factors. Recently, sig-
nificant progress has been made in estimating faults in
actuators and sensors by transforming the nonlinear model
of steer-by-wire (SBW) into a new coordinate system [4].
Tracking the trajectory of the robot link will provide
information about its performance and structural health
conditions. The task of trajectory tracking on a fixed two-
dimensional rectangular coordinate system for a mobile
robot has been studied through the implementation of
iterative learning control (ILC) [5].
Vibration significantly affects the precision of robot
movements. To address this issue, Biglari et al. [6] pro-
posed a frictional damper for flexible robot links. As noted
in the research paper by Sarkhel et al. [7], deflection in
robot links can also significantly affect precision. Deflec-
tion can occur due to heavy loads by causing links to bend
or deform and resulting in inaccurate movement and failure
to perform the intended task. Deflection can also lead to
loose connections and premature wear and tear on robot
structural components. Robot links are subjected to gravity
and compensatory loads, which exacerbate the adverse
effects of deflection [8].
Power transmission gears frequently experience failures
in industrial robots due to fatigue loading. Studies have
been conducted to detect faulty gears. Recently, Frej et al.
[9] proposed a new approach to identifying defects in
single-stage, six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) industrial
robots using dynamic modeling and vibration analysis. In
another study, localized planet gear defects in the rotating
vector (RV) reducer were analyzed using an angle com-
pensation strategy [10].
Since robot links are the primary components that
transmit load and motion from one joint to another joint or
the end effector, damages like cracks in such structural
members can significantly impact the dynamics of the
robot. The crack shape and location affect the operation
performances of the overall structure. Machine learning
and simulation tools yield unparalleled abilities to under-
stand the complex nature of structural dynamics and use
the knowledge for decision making. Researchers [11–16]
have employed simulation tools to investigate the behav-
iors of mechanical components under various loading and
boundary conditions, whereas the structural members were
assumed to be either rigid or flexible. Numerical simula-
tions are commonly used to determine the fatigue life of
structural members. For instance, Guo et al. [17] imple-
mented the finite element method in the modal analysis to
determine the fatigue life of an amphibious spherical robot.
Phanden et al. [18] conducted a literature review, which
highlighted that the digital twin (DT) is a computer-gen-
erated equivalent of a physical system. Its primary purpose
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Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739
is to simulate different objectives by utilizing real-time
data received from the physical system.
Natural frequency analysis is a common method used to
detect the health of mechanical structural components.
Mechanical links can be modeled as beams with different
assembly arrangements in a workspace. Sha et al. [19]
conducted research on methods for detecting damages in
beams by considering both single- and multiple damage
locations. Researchers have explored the free vibration of
beams with various cross sections [20], materials including
composites [21, 22] and steel [20], and different types of
cracks, such as breathing cracks [23, 24] and open cracks
[25, 26]. The vibration responses of mechanical links can
differ due to the material type and the geometry. For
example, Sahu and Das [22] studied a laminated composite
beam with multiple cracks and found that the natural fre-
quencies of defective links decreased with the increasing
intensity of cracks. Taima et al. [27] investigated the sen-
sitivity of natural frequencies of thin and long beams to the
crack location and depth, which was confirmed by another
study [28]. The presence of defects or cracks creates a local
variation in the flexibility of the structure due to the stress
concentration at the vicinity of the crack tip. Vibration
analysis can clearly indicate the health status of structures
with respect to the crack type, whether a crack is open,
closed, or birthing [27]. Teyi and Singh [29] reviewed
research on crack localization and identification in struc-
tural components and concluded that data tools are essen-
tial to the procedure. Data tools can help increase the
reliability and safety of structures by precisely locating
cracks. Zeng et al. [30] investigated the impact of crack
location on a rotating compressor blade (CRCB) using the
ANSYS software. The study aimed to analyze crack-in-
duced breathing behaviors and vibration characteristics as
well as other related variables.
Mian et al. [31] employed multi-sensor fault diagnosis
with infrared thermography (IRT) and vibration analysis to
detect misalignment and imbalance between a shaft and
disk using machine learning. In another study, researchers
compared the accuracy of using infrared thermography
(IRT) and vibration data and concluded that fault diagnosis
based on IRT yields better accuracy [32]. Tao et al. [33]
have detected faults in rolling bearing using vibration
signals under various conditions by constructing an unsu-
pervised cross-domain fault diagnosis model. Cross-do-
main fault diagnosis is a new approach to alleviating the
problem associated with a small number of labeled target
data.
Machine learning (ML) is a widely adopted approach
that aids decision making in a wide range of problems,
ranging from simple to complex. Artificial neural networks
are machine learning models inspired by biological neu-
rons. The essential settings of neural network models
Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739
include the number of neurons, activation functions, the
number of layers, and the size of each layer. Baseline
neural networks include shallow neural networks with one
or no hidden layer and deep neural networks (DNNs) with
more than one hidden layers. Despite the DNN superiority
over shallow neural networks in various applications,
shallow networks still possess a significant value in several
fields. For instance, they can capture the deterministic
governing law of temperature in turbo engines [34] and
predict the concrete strengths in civil engineering appli-
cations [35]. To enhance the performance of neural net-
works, neural network settings can be altered for better
classification performances [36].
Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are supervised
machine learning models commonly used for image data
analysis as they demonstrate outstanding classification and
generalization capabilities [37]. In general, signal sampling
produces discrete time-series data. To leverage feature
extraction, Gramian Angular Fields (GAF) can be utilized
to convert one-dimensional (1D) time-series data into two-
dimensional (2D) image data as described by Alsalmi et al.
[38]. The GAF image is created by first converting the
time-series data into an angle matrix and then calculating
the cosine and sine values of each angle. Some lightweight
variants of the GAF method have been developed to
improve its scalability. GAF is an essential tool in pattern
recognition because it can help extract useful features from
time-series data and enhance its interpretability.
Researchers use the GAF method for various applications,
such as wearable sensor-based human activity recognition
[39], land covering mapping using satellite images [40],
and tourism forecasting [41]. A variant of GAF is named
Gramian Angular Summation Fields (GASF). The GASF
method normalizes the input time-series data into the [- 1,
1] range and then extracts crucial features in the form of 2D
image data for further analysis. Alternatively, cyclosta-
tionary and kurtogram maps of sensor data can be
employed as raw image data for CNN. Amin et al. [42]
simulated the wind turbine gearbox under various condi-
tions using the SIMPACK software and transformed the
acceleration data into cyclostationary and kurtogram maps.
These maps were capable of accurately classifying the fault
locations, but not the fault magnitudes.
There is a noticeable research gap in detecting structural
damages of robot components using modal analysis,
machine learning, and feature extraction in two-dimen-
sional (2D) images. To bridge this gap, this work employs
baseline robot link models with and without artificial
cracks with different sizes, locations, and orientations to
simulate their vibration responses using finite element
analysis (FEA). The feature extraction process then con-
verted the time-series data of the vibration responses into
1729
2D images using the GASF method for further analysis and
classification with a convolutional neural network (CNN).
2 Methodology
Figure 1 illustrates the overall approach of this research.
To reduce computational costs, this study employed planar
robot link models with a fine mesh for finite element
analysis (FEA) in the ABAQUS software. Two major
analyses were carried out in this study: The first analysis
investigated the effects of the crack geometries on the robot
link vibration, whereas a crack with a specific geometry
was located at the mid-span of the link; the second analysis
studied the machine learning performances of crack
detection for cracks located at various locations along the
length of the link.
In the first analysis, six cases were considered to
examine the effect of crack geometries. The first case
involved an intact link, while the remaining cases involved
defective links each with a rectangular crack with a fixed
length of 1 mm facing upward at the center of the link. The
different crack geometry cases for the center crack are
tabulated in Table 1. Case 2 featured a vertical crack with a
width of 0.001 mm. The crack width was increased to
0.01 mm and 0.1 mm for Cases 3 and 4, respectively, to
investigate the effect of the crack width on the link
vibration. Cases 5 and 6 demonstrated the effect of the
crack orientations at 45 in the counterclockwise direction
as well as in the clockwise direction, respectively. Every
crack in all cases was a rectangular crack with 1 mm in
length, which was implanted into the robot link as an open
crack as depicted in Figure. 2. The analysis also examined
the effect of the crack width and orientation on the natural
frequency of the robot link.
Fig. 1 Overall approach
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Table 1 Cases for robot link crack geometries o ohðx; tÞ owðx; tÞ
EI þ KGA  hðx; tÞ
Sn Cases Crack width Crack orientation ox ox ox
ð2Þ
o2 hðx; tÞ
1 Case 1 Intact link –  qI ¼0
2 Case 2 0.001 mm Vertical
ot2
3 Case 3 0.01 mm Vertical where E, G, I, and q are Young’s modulus, the shear
4 Case 4 0.1 mm Vertical modulus, the moment of inertia, and the mass density,
5 Case 5 0.1 mm 45 CCW respectively. w(x, t) is the transverse deflection. hðx; tÞ is
6 Case 6 0.1 mm 45 CW the slope angle of the cross-section bending. The shear
correction coefficient is denoted by K that depends on the
These geometries are applied to the crack at the center of the robot
link; CW means clockwise; CCW means counterclockwise cross-section geometry [20]. f(x, t) is an external load. The
internal transverse shear force and the bending moment are
given in Eqs. 3 and 4, respectively [44, 45].
 
owðx; tÞ
In the second analysis, the performance of crack Qðx; tÞ ¼KGA  hðx; tÞ ð3Þ
detection was studied for a rectangular crack with a width ox
of 0.5 mm and a length of 1 mm located at ten evenly ohðx; tÞ
Mðx; tÞ ¼EI ð4Þ
spaced distinct locations from the pinned end to the free ox
end of the link with a 10-mm increment.
This work used the finite element method to simulate the
2.1 Finite element analysis (FEA)
dynamics of robot link models with and without cracks
with different sizes, locations, and orientations in the
This work created a planar robot link model in the ABA-
ABAQUS software. Explicit dynamics was implemented in
QUS software to simulate and study the effect of different
the simulation to obtain the vibration responses of robot
crack geometries and locations on the vibration response of
link models. The vibration response was the acceleration of
the robot link model. The planar robot link model has a
the free end of the link. To study the features of the
pinned pivot point at the center of its eyelet end as shown
acceleration data, the feature extraction process used the
in Fig. 3. The eyelet end has an outer diameter of 10 mm
GASF method to produce 2D images from the acceleration
and an inner diameter of 5 mm. The numerical model
data. A CNN was then employed to classify and evaluate
utilized an explicit dynamics approach that consists of two
the 2D images with respect to the intactness of the baseline
steps, which are explained in Sect. 2.1.1. A quadrilateral
robot link.
element was used for finite element simulation. The
A baseline robot link model with a length of L and a
material of the planar robot link was steel with a density of
uniform cross section of A is simulated as a cantilever
786 kg/m3, an elastic modulus of 207 GPa, and a Poisson’s
beam in a quasi-static process for each case in Table 1. The
ratio of 0.3.
following formulas are the governing differential equations
The explicit dynamics approach enables the simulation
of the bending vibration dynamics [43]:
   of transient behaviors to analyze the vibration of the
o owðx; tÞ o2 wðx; tÞ structure in response to momentary external loading. By
KGA  hðx; tÞ  qA ¼ f ðx; tÞ
ox ox ot2 utilizing this approach, the aim is to demonstrate the fea-
ð1Þ sibility of detecting early stage cracks in a baseline struc-
tural link using vibration responses and machine learning.

Fig. 2 Baseline robot link with

an open vertical crack

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Fig. 3 Simulation setup

2.1.1 Boundary conditions

Robot links and joints may experience extreme loading or

collisions during robot operation. For simplicity, the
boundary conditions of the simulation experiment restric-
ted the eyelet end of the planar robot link to only one
rotational degree of freedom about the pinned pivot point
as depicted in Fig. 3. Additionally, a deformable circular
object with a 3 mm radius was modeled and positioned at
145 mm and 10 mm from the center of the link’s pivot
point. In the simulation, the deformable circular object is
used to impose momentary loading on the robot link to Fig. 5 Mesh density convergence
assimilate foreign object impact. In this regard, the circular
object remains in place and then exerts a cyclic impact load Von Mises stress starts converging to 140 MPa at a mesh
on the robot link. During the first step, the pinned end of size of 0.6 mm, which consists of 2548 grid elements.
the link is subjected to a torque of 100 Nmm, while the Therefore, the simulation of all cases implemented a mesh
circular object is subjected to a unit load in the downward size of 0.4 mm. The mesh element size around the vicinity
direction for 0.2 s. Once the link and the circular object of the robot link crack was set to 0.05 mm.
come into contact, the vertical load imposed on them The accelerations of Node 8 and Node 851 have been
becomes inactive, and the interaction between them is extracted from a 1-second simulation. Figure 6 illustrates
controlled by the gravity and the torque at the eyelet end of the acceleration of Node 8 and Node 851 located at the top
the planar robot link. free end of the link as shown in Fig. 4 of the intact link. A
total of 98 nodes have been involved in the sampling of
2.1.2 Mesh density convergence acceleration including the two mentioned nodes. The
accelerations of the remaining 96 nodes near the vicinity of
The mesh density analysis has been done to carry out a the free end were used for specific verification. Likewise,
reasonable execution cost. An explicit quad plane stress the data collection of all defective robot link cases was
element with 4 nodes, as depicted in Fig. 4, has been conducted in the same way.
implemented by varying the mesh size from 5 to 0.4 mm.
Additionally, the accelerations of Node 8 and Node 851
were used for data acquisition. As illustrated in Fig. 5, the

Fig. 4 Planar model with

quadrilateral elements

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Fig. 6 Accelerations of Node 8 and Node 851 in the vertical direction
2.2 Dataset preparation
The time-series datasets from the simulation experiments
have then been converted into 2D images using the method
called Gramian Angular Summation Field (GASF). In this
case, the time-series acceleration data have been normal-
ized and transformed from the Cartesian coordinate system
into a polar coordinate system. This transformation keeps
the temporal information of the input data point. The next
step is to identify temporal relationships between any two
data points in the polar coordinate system. The [n, n]-di-
mensional Gramian matrix can then be produced by
applying trigonometric functions, whereas n is the number
of samples in a certain time period. Let S ¼ ½s1 ; s2 ; s3 ; . . .sn 
denote an acceleration signal with n samples, and let S ¼
½s1 ; s2 ; s3 ; . . .sn  denote the normalized version of S in the
interval [- 1,1], which can be given by the form in Eq. 5,
where i (=1, ..., n) is a time index. Then, the angle u is
computed using Eq. 6.
si  minðSÞ
si ¼
maxðSÞ  minðSÞ
 Following the preparation of the datasets, the CNN
u ¼ arccosðSÞ
Temporal correlation between adjacent time-series points
(i, j) is computed by summing the angles of the adjacent
points (i, j), where i and j are the time indices of the data
points. Thus, this Gramian matrix is also referred to as
Gramian Angular Summation Field (GASF). These for-
mulations can be written as in Eqs. 7–9:
GASF ¼ ½cosðui þ uj Þ
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
GASF ¼ ST  S ðI  S2 Þ  ðI  S2 Þ
2 3
cosðu1 þ u1 Þ    cosðu1 þ un Þ
6 cosðu þ u Þ    cosðu þ u Þ 7
6 2 1 2 n 7
GASF ¼ 6 7 ð9Þ
4    5
cosðun þ u1 Þ  cosðun þ un Þ
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The time-series data of acceleration measured at the free
end of the planar robot link are considered raw data. As
depicted in Fig. 7a, the acceleration fluctuation increases in
a highly nonlinear pattern in the first 0.3 s due to the impact
load of the circular object. The magnitude of the acceler-
ation fluctuation decreases over time because the load of
the circular object is removed after the impact on the robot
link, so that only the gravitational force and the moment
load are applied to the link. The polar representation of the
raw data is shown in Fig. 7b. It is further transformed into
2D image data using the GASF method, which is also
shown in Fig. 7c.
2.3 Convolutional neural network (CNN)
This study used a convolutional neural network to classify
2D images of the acceleration data. The neural network
architecture is composed of six hidden layers in addition to
the input and output layers as shown in Fig. 8. The first
convolutional layer generates a tensor with dimensions of
387  387  16, which is then subjected to max-pooling to
reduce the feature dimensions to 193  193  16. Another
convolutional layer and max-pooling layer follow this
process. The nodes use rectified logic unit (ReLU) as an
activation function. The final max-pooling layer output is
fully connected to a dense layer with a soft-max activation
function for classification into one of the six classes.
In this work, the CNN training was carried out using a
backpropagation algorithm, which has a learning rate of
0.0001. The CNN model contains 36,973,035 trainable
parameters, with a batch size of 64. The neural network
architecture employed in this study is suitable for analyzing
2D input images and has potential applications in computer
ð5Þ
vision and pattern recognition.
ð6Þ
model is trained and tested on a cloud-based Google Collab
server to take advantage of the computational speed.
Accuracy and loss performance metrics have been used to
evaluate the performance of the neural network. Accuracy
is the fraction of correct predictions in the overall predic-
tion set. Formally, for multi-category classification, the
simple mathematical representation of accuracy is given in
Eq. 10. Utilizing accuracy as a performance evaluation
ð7Þ metric becomes imperative when the consideration of both
false/true–negative predictions is required. Losses also
ð8Þ
serve as performance indicators, assuming a crucial role in
detecting and mitigating prediction inaccuracies. Ulti-
mately, the supervised training of the CNN model aims to
maximize the overall accuracy of CNN predictions.
Number of correct predictions
Accuracy ¼ ð10Þ
Total number of predictions
Supervised training determines good values for CNN
Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739 1733

Fig. 7 Feature extraction: a raw

time-series data; b polar
representation of raw data; c 2D
image data

Fig. 8 Neural network

architecture. Note: ReLU is a
rectified linear unit used as an
activation function

weights and biases using labeled training datasets. The loss is a penalty score for poor predictions. In other words, the

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loss is a statistic that represents how inaccurate the pre-
diction is for a specific example. The objective of super-
vised training is to identify a collection of CNN weights
and biases that, on average, have the lowest possible loss
across all cases. A popular loss function is a mean square
error (MSE) that is the average square loss for the whole
dataset. To calculate MSE, one needs to sum up all the
squared losses for individual examples and then divide
them by the number of examples as given in Eq. 11.
1 intact robot link, which is the Case-1 robot link without
MSE ¼ Rða;bÞD ðb  predictionðaÞÞ2 ð11Þ
N
where (a, b) is a labeled sample in which a is the set of
features that the classification uses to make predictions, b is
the target, i.e., healthy, breathing crack, open crack, etc.
prediction(.) is a neural network model that makes pre-
dictions, D is the dataset of labeled samples, and N is the
number of samples in D.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Vibration modes
Free vibration analysis has been conducted to investigate
the natural frequencies of the intact robot link. Six free
vibration mode shapes of the intact robot link with one
fixed eyelet end are depicted in Fig. 9, where each mode
shape is shown as a contour plot. The planar simulation
results show that the first four mode shapes and the sixth
mode shape exhibit pitch motion patterns. On the other
hand, a yaw motion is exhibited by the fifth mode shape.
Fig. 9 Vibration mode shapes due to free vibration of intact robot link with one fixed eyelet end
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Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739
3.2 The effects of crack geometries
on the natural frequency of the robot link
To understand the effects of crack geometries on the nat-
ural frequency of the robot link, finite element simulation
has been conducted. Figure 10 illustrates the natural fre-
quencies of the six mode shapes exhibited by the robot
links of the cases that are tabulated in Table 1. In Mode 1,
the maximum natural frequency is associated with the
cracks. Mode 2, Mode 4, and Mode 5 also exhibit com-
parable natural frequency patterns for the robot link cases.
In all vibration modes, Case 2, Case 3, and Case 4
demonstrate how the natural frequency drops as the crack
width rises.
Another interesting point is that, compared to the ver-
tical cracks involved in Case 1, Case 2, and Case 3, the
robot link displays greater natural frequencies when the
crack orientation is at 45 in either the clockwise or
counterclockwise direction. In Case 6, the robot link with a
crack oriented at 45 in the clockwise direction displays a
little larger natural frequency than the one with a crack
oriented at 45 in the counterclockwise direction. This
trend can perhaps be attributed to the boundary conditions
and the impact force arrangement implemented in the
simulation with respect to the crack orientation. Mode 3
produced nearly equal natural frequencies in all cases,
except the Case-2 robot link with an insignificant vertical
crack. The maximum crack width that is considered in this
study is only 1 mm, which is small in comparison with the
size of the robot link. Based on the simulation results, it can
be assumed that the crack width has a negative effect on
the natural frequency, which means larger crack widths
decrease the natural frequency.
Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739
Fig. 10 Mode shapes, natural
frequencies, and cases for robot
link crack geometries
3.3 The effects of crack locations on the robot
link vibration
In this experimentation, a crack that is 0.5 mm wide and
1 mm long has been applied to various locations along the
robot link. The same crack is applied to a robot link at a
location between 10 and 100 mm from the center of the
pinned eyelet end. Detection and classification of these
cracks are then explored with the CNN model. Figure 11
illustrates the Node 8 acceleration responses for the intact
robot link and the robot links with respective cracks at
50 mm and 100 mm from the pinned end. The vibration
responses of the robot link are not smooth when the crack
Fig. 11 Acceleration responses of Node 8
1735
is located far from the constrained end. Additionally, the
acceleration variation is low after 0.3 s in comparison with
the responses within the first 0.3 s.
The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is a discrete math
function that reveals the frequency components of time-
series data [46, 47]. As presented by the normalized fre-
quency spectrum in Fig. 12, higher magnitudes are exhib-
ited by the low-frequency components of the link with a
crack at 100 mm. Generally, the magnitude of acceleration
increases as the crack is located further away from the
pinned end during the first few time increments.
To evaluate whether the cracks at different locations are
detectable, ML has been used to detect and classify the
Fig. 12 Normalized frequency spectrum of Node-8 acceleration data
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1736 Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739

links with the same crack geometries, but various crack

locations. Accordingly, a convolutional neural network
(CNN) was trained with 836 images in total. The validation
set involved 231 images, which is about 20% of the total
image data. Based on the results, the accuracy and the loss
of classification are 96.17% and 0.1237, respectively, as
depicted in Fig. 13. Both the accuracy and the loss are
converging within 30 epochs.
Figure 14 illustrates the accuracy of detecting the crack
at varying locations along the robot link. Cracks closer to
the fixed end are more detectable than the cracks further
away from the fixed end. This is reasonable because a
crack located far from the fixed end has a lower effect on
the acceleration of the free end. The crack that is closest to
the fixed end of the robot link lowers the acceleration
response of the free end by damping the impact load.

3.4 Classification of planar robot links Fig. 14 Confusion matrix for robot link with cracks at different
with different crack geometries locations. Note: Cr means crack

The simulation experiment described in the methodology
section involved the six different cases of intact and
cracked planar robot links to obtain their acceleration/vi-
bration responses. The obtained acceleration data are then
used to evaluate the detectability of the cracks with dif-
ferent geometries. Accordingly, the simulation experiments
produced 588 datasets, whereas 456 datasets (80%) were
used for training, 126 datasets were used for validation, and
the remaining datasets were used for testing. The training
and validation datasets were used to optimize and fine-tune
the CNN model, while the testing dataset was used to
evaluate the classification performance with novel datasets.
The results of the simulation were analyzed and are pre-
sented in Fig. 15, which shows the final accuracy of
98.25% and the loss of 0.0606 after 150 training epochs.
These results indicate that the CNN model is good enough
to detect structural defects in the specimen. Although the
finite element simulation considers ideal conditions, these
results demonstrate that vibration sensing and machine
learning can be used to detect cracks in baseline planar
robot links. This outcome is especially useful for industries
that rely on the structural integrity of equipment and
materials. Furthermore, the confusion matrix in Fig. 16
illustrates that 100% accuracy has been achieved for all the
cases, except the third and the fourth cases, which exhibit
95% accuracy. Overall, the CNN model was able to detect
cracks with different geometries at a certain location along
the robot link more accurately than the crack at different
locations along the robot link.
The proposed method offers a new way of detecting
structural defects, such as cracks, in robot links using their
vibration responses and deep learning with feature extrac-
tion in two-dimensional images. To demonstrate the effi-
cacy of the method, this study uses planar robot link
models with and without artificial cracks to simulate and
collect their vibration responses in ABAQUS via finite
element analysis (FEA). The collected vibration responses
are then transformed into two-dimensional images for deep
learning neural networks to learn and assess the effects of
different artificial cracks on the vibration responses of the

Fig. 13 Evolution of
classification performances for
detecting cracks at different
locations: a accuracy (Eq. 10);
b loss (Eq. 11)

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Neural Computing and Applications (2024) 36:1727–1739
Fig. 15 Evolution of
classification performances for
detecting cracks with different
geometries: a accuracy
(Eq. 10); b loss (Eq. 11)
Fig. 16 Confusion matrix for
robot link with different crack
sizes
robot link models. This study not only demonstrates a
successful use of neural computing in conjunction with
modal analysis for robot health monitoring but also
unleashes a new opportunity to recognize structural defects
in their early stages of formations using FEA, modal
analysis, and deep learning.
4 Conclusions
This study demonstrated that the size and location of small
cracks have an impact on the vibrations of planar robot
links. Finite element analysis (FEA) has been conducted to
study the vibrations of planar robot links with crack widths
1737
ranging from 0.001 to 0.1 mm, crack orientations including
45 CCW, vertical, and 45 CW, and crack locations
ranging from 10 to 100 mm from the pinned end of the
robot link. The robot link acceleration response, which is
1D time-series data, is collected and transformed into 2D
image data using the GASF method. The 2D image data
have been fed to the CNN model for evaluation and clas-
sification. The results indicate that, as the crack width
decreases, the natural frequency of the robot link decreases.
Additionally, the crack orientation also affects the natural
frequency. The 45 CCW cracks exhibited slightly higher
natural frequencies than that of the 45 CW ones, when a
momentary external load is applied to the free end of the
link in the counterclockwise direction. The crack at
123
1738
different locations along the robot link was detected by the
proposed ML method with 96.17% accuracy. Moreover,
cracks with different geometries at a specific location along
the robot link were detected with 98.25% accuracy. Cor-
respondingly, this study draws the following conclusions:
• The intact robot link had a higher natural frequency
than that of cracked robot links.
• The crack orientation affects the natural frequency as
the slanted cracks exhibit higher natural frequencies
than that of the vertical cracks.
• Cracks located farther away from the fixed end exhibit
higher acceleration amplitudes.
• Cracks with varying geometries at a specific location
along the robot link are detected more accurately than
the constant crack at different locations along the robot
link.
• This work not only demonstrates a successful use of
neural computing in conjunction with modal analysis
for robot health monitoring but also unleashes a new
opportunity to recognize structural defects in their early
stages of formations using FEA, modal analysis, and
deep learning.
It should be noted that the robot link models used in this
study are planar and the crack shapes are rectangular for
simplicity. Such geometries may not provide accurate
representations of actual robot links. Therefore, more
realistic digital 3D robot link models along with more
realistic crack types must be considered in the future work
to further evaluate this proposed machine learning method.
Ultimately, this new machine learning method should be
tested with actual vibration data collected from actual robot
manipulators with intact and defective structural compo-
nents. In this case, the vibration of structural components
can be captured by vibration sensors to validate the simu-
lation results.
Funding The article received no funding from any private or gov-
ernment organization.
Data availability The data presented in this study are available on
request from the corresponding author.
Declaration
Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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