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Procedia Manufacturing 00 (2019) 000–000
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Procedia Manufacturing 51 (2020) 316–323

30th International Conference on Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing (FAIM2021)

15-18 June 2021, Athens, Greece.
Abnormal vibration detection in the bearing-shaft system via semi-
supervised classification of accelerometer signal patterns
Sujeong Baeka*, Hyun Sik Yoonb, Duck Young Kimb
a
Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Hanbat National University, Donseodae-Ro 125, Daejeon, 34158, Republic of Korea
b
Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Cheongam-Ro 77, Pohang, 37673, Repulic of Korea
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-42-821-1228; fax: +82-42-821-1591. E-mail address: sbaek@hanbat.ac.kr

Abstract

Several methods have been proposed for fault detection in mechanical systems based on sensor signals. It is preferable that corresponding label
for each sensor signal should be provided and analyzed via appropriate supervised classification methods. However, the label information about
a system's status often does not perfectly pair to the corresponding data. Therefore, we apply a semi-supervised classification for fault detection
using pattern extraction of multivariate signals. This approach transforms continuous time series into a set of contiguous bins via multivariate
discretization. Then, we identify informative patterns in the system states, by using a self-training method with limited label information. To
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed extraction method, five accelerometer signals are collected from a bearing-shaft system. The
proposed method successfully reveals informative fault patterns that can be applied as references for fault detection. The method achieved a
higher detection performance, regardless the ratio of unlabeled inputs in datasets.

© 2020The
© 2020 TheAuthors.
Authors. Published
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by Elsevier Ltd. Ltd.
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Peer-review under responsibility ofof
thethe scientific
scientific committee
committee of FAIM
of the the FAIM 2021.
2020.

Keywords: Fault detection; Pattern extraction; Semi-supervised classification; Time series

1. Introduction analyze the sensor signals related to faults in various

mechanical systems [8, 9]. However, very few sensor signals
can typically be obtained for fault detection in a mechanical
With the introduction of new technology and divergence of element, and these signals are typically very short, nonlinear,
customer preferences, mechanical systems have become more and non-stationary [10, 11]. These signal characteristics can
intelligent, more complex, and therefore more uncertain [1, 2, easily give rise to unclear relationships between the signal and
3, 4]. Failure to adequately control a system leads to the the system's operational states (e.g., no-fault state and fault
occurrence of faults and system downtimes; these result in state). In such a case, the typical geometric similarity is not
economic losses, such as high warranty costs, as well as social satisfied because of inconsistencies incorrectly identifying as
losses, including negative impacts on consumer confidence [5, statistical outliers those signal values or trends associated with
6, 7]. Therefore, to reliably operate a system while preventing fault states [12]. To address this issue, pattern extraction with
unexpected fault occurrences, appropriate strategies for fault time series representations has been introduced to identify
detection and identification have been pursued. informative indicators of faults.
Because it is difficult to obtain clear and quantitative Among such approaches, time series discretization has
information in advance about a mechanical system—such as been widely used to analyze unexpected or anomalous signal
the fault-related frequency band and the state-space changes [13, 14, 15] by preserving the meaningful signal
representation [7]—many researchers have tried to indirectly changes while reducing the size of the dataset. After
2351-9789 © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
2351-9789
This is an©open
2020 access
The Authors. Published
article under bytheElsevier Ltd.
CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an openunder
Peer-review access article under the CC
responsibility BY-NC-ND
of the license
scientific https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
committee of the FAIM 2021.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the FAIM 2020.
10.1016/j.promfg.2020.10.045
 Sujeong Baek et al. / Procedia Manufacturing 51 (2020) 316–323
2 Author name / Procedia Manufacturing 00 (2019) 000–000
transforming the original signals, the significant signal
patterns are extracted from target states of a system as motifs
[16, 17, 18]. For example, the transformation of the original
signals to discretized state vectors (DSVs) is applied both in
discrete wavelet transforms and in one of the time series
discretization methods, namely, symbolic aggregate
approximation (SAX) [19]. By counting the number of
occurrences of each DSV and using the k-nearest neighbor
classifier, George et al. extracted meaningful patterns about
rotor faults in induction motors [20]. Duan et al. analyzed
compressor faults by SAX transformation and bit map [21].
After transforming the original vibration signals, they
generated a meaningful bit map from each different fault state
(e.g., spring faults, valve fracture, and valve wear). In addition,
many researchers have used time series classification with a
supervised learning classifier for the extraction of significant
markers of faults [22, 23, 24].
However, obtaining corresponding and correct labels for
the entire time series data is very expensive and time
consuming [25, 26, 27], and mechanical systems are usually
rife with unknown faults [28]. In other words, in practice, the
label information about a system's status often fails to
perfectly pair with the corresponding sensor data. For example,
fully labeled datasets are often collected from in-lab
experiments or test runs, whereas unlabeled datasets are
collected using the identical system in practical environments.
Therefore, several semi-supervised learning approaches have
been introduced in order to leverage the advantages of both
supervised and unsupervised learning [29, 30]. Zhao et al.
proposed a semi-supervised learning classifier for fault
detection in solar photovoltaic arrays [31]. They normalized
and filtered measurements and then distinguished fault data
from other data by using supervised and unsupervised
classifiers together in a semi-supervised manner. This method
showed good performance without labeling costs in
continuously updating models. For the extraction of
meaningful vibration signals, a semi-supervised classifier was
applied with Kernel marginal Fisher analysis [32]. Those
authors first reduced redundant information in order to
highlight meaningful signal behaviors related to system status
change. They then extracted optimal low-dimensional features
in order to improve the classification performance of various
bearing fault types.
In many studies, semi-supervised learning approaches
showed the improvement in fault detection with not fully
labeled input datasets. However, it is not easy to apply a semi-
supervised classifier to DSVs, because time series
discretization reduces the number of datasets, making the
preprocessed dataset smaller than the original dataset. Jun et al.
obtained a symbolic representation of time series with a semi-
supervised classification [33]. They transformed the time-
series data into a series of granules by applying a hidden
Markov model, and then used both the hidden Markov model
and a shallow neural network together with symbolic and
original real-valued data, respectively. Also, a convolution
neural network (CNN) was modified and used for a semi-
supervised learning in the time-series classification [34]. First,
the investigators artificially increased the amount of training
data to handle partially labeled inputs in the supervised
317
classification problem. In addition, they conducted the pre-
training of each layer in an unsupervised manner to find
appropriate parameter settings of the classifier. Then, in a
supervised manner, they applied convolution filters to
discretized time-series data. A combination of SAX and neural
networks was also used to distinguish gestures and actions
[35]. A 3D posed image was converted into a symbol matrix
using SAX, and then a hierarchical-clustering method was
used to assign symbol matrices to several 3D posed-image
groups. After generating the groups in a semi-supervised
manner, the investigators converted a symbol matrix into a
feature vector using a CNN and predicted the current gesture
by a long short-term memory model in a supervised condition.
However, during the time-series classification and fault
detection, a decrease in the performance of semi-supervised
learning approaches was observed compared with that of
supervised learning. In addition, several detection approaches
provided high detection performance either with few labeled
and many unlabeled input datasets or with few labeled and
many unlabeled inputs [27, 33, 34]. Because semi-supervised
detection cannot be controlled in practical environments, it
should not be susceptible to the number of unlabeled inputs in
the entire dataset. Therefore, in this study, we propose adding
the number of DSV occurrences in no-fault and fault patterns
as input data in semi-supervised learning to re-weigh the
extracted patterns and make up for the information loss from
the discretization. The proposed occurrence information
should enable dealing with a severity as a fault marker.
Subsequently, we analyzed the dependence of fault detection
performance on the amount of data in training sets to compare
the performance of our proposed method with the existing
supervised or semi-supervised detection methods.
The remainder of the present study is organized as follows.
Section 2 details the transformation of the original continuous
signals into DSVs and describes the extraction of fault
patterns using semi-supervised classification in consideration
of the number of DSV occurrences. Section 3 describes the
bearing-shaft system analyzed here, the collection of
acceleration signals and the control of abnormal states. The
pattern extraction method is experimentally verified and
validated for the detection of fault states in the bearing shaft.
Finally, Section 4 presents concluding remarks and future
directions following this work.
2. Semi-supervised classification of signal patterns
2.1. Pattern generation from multivariate signals
We used the multivariate discretization in a pattern
extraction manner, to observe informative signal behaviors, as
developed in our previous study [11] (illustrated as Fig. 1).
This developed multivariate discretization-based pattern
analysis was composed of (i) a digitizing and partitioning step
and (ii) an abnormal pattern extraction step. The developed
pattern extraction method showed higher fault detection and
prediction performance in the electromechanical systems, such
as an automobile engine and a laser welding machine. In this
study, we therefore continue to apply the method to extract
accelerometer signal patterns to detect abnormal vibrations in
318 Sujeong Baek et al. / Procedia Manufacturing 51 (2020) 316–323
Author name / Procedia Manufacturing 00 (2019) 000–000
Fig. 1. DSV generation by multivariate time series discretization using
acceleration signals acquired from the bearing-shaft system: (a) the original
data; (b) the partitioning step (a series of time segments); (c) the digitizing
step (a series of labeled time segments); (d) the generated DSV.
the bearing-shaft system. The digitizing step was also usually
called a labeling step, but to prevent confusion between
labeling in discretization and assignment of class information
such as a fault or no-fault for classification, we used the term
digitizing. In this research, a second supervised abnormal
pattern extraction step was substituted with the semi-
supervised classification step, as explained in Section 2.2.
First, we divided continuous the entire time series data into
𝑠𝑠 segments (i.e., time windows) with an equal length 𝑤𝑤. A
small portion of the multiple-sensor data was transformed into
either a single label or a few labels. Various statistical indices
of time series data can be utilized as discretization labels.
Herein, we selected the mean value of the original time series
data within a time segment as shown in Fig. 1. Because the
obtained accelerometer signals oscillated up and down quite
symmetrically, exhibiting a mean value of zero, the absolute
values of the original sensor signals were applied to
investigate the changes in magnitude over time.
To convert a continuous mean value into a discrete digital
label, we divided the sensor signal domain into digitalized
bins by maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). MLE was
used to estimate the entire collection of sensor signals as a
parametric probability density function (PDF) (i.e., an
estimated distribution). Based on user-defined parameters (i.e.,
the number of bins and bin width threshold), the estimated
distribution of each sensor signal was cut into several
digitalized bins 𝑙𝑙�� where 𝑖𝑖 represents the identification
number of the sensor signal and 𝑗𝑗 represents the relative
location of the current bin. The maximum value of 𝑗𝑗 is 𝑏𝑏, the
number of bins.
Finally, we were able to approximate the original
multivariate sensor signal 𝐗𝐗 as the 𝑚𝑚 � 𝑠𝑠 matrix of DSVs,
��𝐗𝐗� denoted as
3
 D( X )11 D( X )12  D( X )1s 
 
D( X )21     (1)
D(X)  
   D( X )ik  
 
 D( X ) m1 D( X )m2  D( X )ms 
where 𝑚𝑚 is the number of sensor signals, 𝑠𝑠 is the number of
time segments, and 𝐷𝐷�𝑋𝑋��� is one of the assigned digitalized
labels corresponding to the original 𝑖𝑖 th sensor signal within the
𝑘𝑘th time segment.
During the discretization procedure, each discretization
parameter, listed in Table 1, was applied for pattern extraction
of the accelerometer signals. We then selected the optimal
values for these parameters according to an empirical
sensitivity analysis of discretization parameters [11].
Thereafter, we calculated the key characteristics (KCIs) of the
accelerometer signals because KCIs are highly significant in
selecting the optimal discretization parameters. The signals
showed a large abrupt variance which indicates the given
signals were highly fluctuating. Also, the datasets had low
discernibility index which means it was not straightforward to
distinguish between two distributions from normal and
abnormal states respectively. Therefore, we chose seven bins
and an 80% bin width threshold which can focus on separating
outliers into as many different bins as possible, rather than
dividing the measurements in a centroid of the given
distribution. That is, the median bin that includes a centroid of
the distribution occupies 80% of total distribution, whereas
other bins occupy 3.33% each.
Table 1. Parameters used for multivariate time series discretization.
Discretization parameter Parameter setting
Number of data points 100 points (every 1s) without any
in a time segment nested points
Number of bins 7 bins
Bin width threshold 80%
2.2. Semi-supervised classification considering the
occurrences of the DSVs
The generated DSV matrix from the previous section was
applied to a semi-supervised classifier to distinguish current
status as abnormal or normal. To do this, we adopted the self-
training classifier based on a deep neural network (DNN).
Self-training was a simple semi-supervised method and
showed good performance when the number of labeled
datasets was small [27, 36]. The method consisted of three
steps, as illustrated in Fig. 2: (i) initial classification with
labeled DSVs, (ii) unlabeled data prediction, and (iii)
retraining with both labeled datasets and pseudo-labeled data.
Before training, the DNN structure needs to be defined.
In this study, we employed a neural network with three
hidden layers. While the number output node was one, the
number of input nodes corresponds to seven which were the
sum of the number of elements in one DSV—herein five
labels—and two neurons which are for the occurrence number
of the corresponding DSV in each system state. If the value of
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Fig. 2. The general framework of the self-training classifier.
the output node was assigned as 0, the current state of the
bearing-shaft system was considered as normal. If the output
node provided 1 as a result, it was considered that abnormal
vibration is in the system. The number of other nodes and the
corresponding transfer functions should be optimized, and we
determined the settings by conducting an empirical
experiment. We applied several parameter settings for the
numbers of hidden layers, such as increasing those numbers
(e.g., 5, 10, and 20 for the first, second and third layers
respectively) or decreasing the numbers (e.g., 20, 10, and 5 for
the first, second and third layers respectively). We also
considered different transfer functions, including a positive
linear function and a hyperbolic tangent sigmoid function.
After trying different parameter settings of a DNN, the
structure with the highest performance in the fault detection
and computation time was selected and summarized in Table 2.
Table 2. The structure of input, hidden, and output layers used in abnormal
vibration detection.
Layer ID The number of nodes Transfer function
Input layer 7
Hidden layer 1 5 unknown DSVs in the test phase of abnormal vibration
Positive linear transfer
Hidden layer 2 10
function
Hidden layer 3 20
Output layer 1
First, we trained the DNN model with the selected
architecture with the labeled dataset as a supervised condition
and predicted the unlabeled data via the initially trained
classifier. Then, the predicted outputs of the unlabeled datasets
were sorted. An output equal to 1 was considered an abnormal
pattern with complete confidence. On the other hand, an
output equal to 0 was considered by the corresponding DSV to
completely represent only a normal status of the bearing-shaft
system. In this regard, among the pseudo-labeled data, the
maximum (the most abnormal) and minimum (most normal)
outputs were considered most confident, and they were used
as new input data with corresponding pseudo-labels into the
DNN model for retraining. If we had selected the most
abnormal and most normal data, the computational cost would
be very expensive. Therefore, in this study, we employed a
319
user-selected threshold to determine the confidence limits on
datasets, such as above 0.95 and below 0.05. Step 2 and 3
were recursive until no unlabeled datasets remained.
To overcome the small number of training DSVs and
compute the predictive power of DSVs, we added the number
of DSV occurrences in the normal and abnormal states as
input variables respectively. In step 1, we counted the
occurrences of each labeled DSV in normal and abnormal
states. Because a given system status often lasted for a long
period (mean length: 83s), it was possible to find a DSV in
one specific state more than once. We counted these
occurrences as distinct, because a repetitive DSV can serve as
a more powerful index for a given system’s state. We then
applied the DNN model to the labeled DSVs and their
corresponding occurrence numbers in normal and abnormal
states for the first training. After the initial training, we
conducted the same procedure for step 2 with unlabeled inputs.
When unlabeled DSVs had the corresponding pseudo-label by
the DNN model, ‘most confident DSVs’ were also selected of
which output value was within the confidence limits. Then, we
counted the occurrences of both the existing labeled DSVs,
and unlabeled but the most confident DSVs from normal and
abnormal states. Consequently, both the DSVs and the
corresponding numbers of occurrences were used as new
training datasets in the next iteration. That is, the training
datasets in the self-training classifier were repetitively
changed in every training iteration by adding the new
confident DSVs among pseudo-labeled DSVs. By considering
the occurrences of DSVs in both system states as input nodes
respectively, it was possible to give higher value as an output
to the particular DSV which was frequently found in abnormal
states but never in normal states. Visa versa, we assigned a
lower value as a result to a DSV which are rarely found in
abnormal states but usually observed in normal states. In
addition, we could differentiate the known DSVs and
detection.
3. Experimental results of abnormal vibration detection
using signal patterns
3.1. The bearing-shaft system
For validation and verification of the proposed detection
method, we designed the bearing-shaft system shown in Fig.
3a. The bearing-shaft system was composed of two shafts, five
bearings, two plates, and two gears. Mechanical rotation of the
system is powered by a DC motor, which transfers power
through shafts and interlocking gears. To monitor the system's
operational status in real time, five acceleration sensors (PCB-
352A21) were attached to each bearing cover and the upper
side of the motor, as illustrated in Fig. 3b. It is Vibration
signals were collected by a real-time data acquisition (NI-
cDAQ-9178) at a sampling rate of 100Hz for an average of
83s (standard deviation: 7.8s) per dataset; the signals were
directly stored in a database.
320 Sujeong Baek et al. / Procedia Manufacturing 51 (2020) 316–323
Author name / Procedia Manufacturing 00 (2019) 000–000 5

The characteristics of the bearing-shaft system, including

the gear ratio, motor speed, and dimensions are further
detailed in Table 3 and detail specification of the
accelerometers used are summarized in Table 4. Additional
descriptions of the collected datasets are provided in Table 5.
A sample of a collected dataset was given as an 𝑛𝑛 � � array,
where 𝑛𝑛 indicates the length of the time series in either a
normal or an abnormal state and 5 rows indicate 5 sensors, as
shown in Table 6. For example, if sensor signals were
collected for 60s at a sampling rate of 100Hz, the size of the
collected datasets would be ���� � �.

Table 3. Experimental setup of the bearing-shaft system and data acquisition

device to collect vibration signals during normal and abnormal states

Total dimension (� � � � �� 0.95m � 0.25m � 0.35m

Gear diameter (driving, driven) 0.11m, 0.07m

The number of gear teeth

50, 30
(Driving, driven)

Motor speed 250rpm

Table 4. Specifications of the sensor used to measure the vibration of the

bearing-shaft system.
Fig. 3. Bearing-shaft system: (a) photo of the bearing-shaft system; (b) the
On the motor and corresponding brief diagram of the bearing-shaft system.
Sensor positions
on the four bearing covers

Sensitivity 1.0 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 � Five signals were collected at a sampling rate of 100Hz,
which is relatively but sufficiently low for monitoring the
Measurement range � 4,900 𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚𝑚 � 𝑝𝑝𝑝𝑝 status of the rotating equipment. If the sampling rate is
Frequency range (� 5%) [1.0 10,000] Hz extremely low, it is susceptible to distortions such as aliasing
�� or folding [37]. On the other hand, if too high, more
Spectral noise (100Hz) 60 /√𝐻𝐻𝐻𝐻
�� computation cost would be required. According to the
previous research, any value over the Nyquist sampling rate
Table 5. Description of the collected vibration datasets during normal and
(herein 0.5Hz) was adequate and appropriate to collect signals
abnormal states.
in fault pattern extraction through DSVs [38]. When
Number of sensors in the system Five accelerometer sensors multivariate discretization was used for the fault pattern
extraction, 100Hz was an allowable sampling rate because of
Number of abnormal states the partitioning step. As several measurements in the user-
10 times for each fault type
(type 1 / type 2 / type 3)
defined length of the time segment are transformed into one
Total number of normal states 30 states label, above the minimum sampling rate (i.e., the Nyquist
sampling rate) the performance of the extracted fault pattern
Monitoring period for each state
About 83s was not significantly different from a Tukey honest
(Standard deviation: 7.8s) significant-difference test. That is, time segmentation showed
Sampling frequency 100Hz
a similar effect to having a low sampling rate, and there was
no significant difference for any sampling rates higher than
the Nyquist's minimum sampling rate. Therefore, in this study,
Table 6. The structure of hidden layers used in abnormal vibration detection.
we selected 100Hz, which was not only sufficiently high to
Time Sensor 1 Sensor 2 Sensor 3 Sensor 4 Sensor 5 capture the signal behavior over time but also efficient to
collect a huge amount of time series data.
00.000 -0.0084 0.0766 0.0287 -0.1182 -0.0193
We artificially simulated three different fault states by
00.001 0.0947 0.0011 -0.01125 0.1374 -0.0047 controlling the basic components (i.e., shaft and bearing) of
00.002 0.0042 0.0195 0.0622 0.0637 -0.0119 the bearing-shaft system as follows: For the first fault type,
two shafts were arranged in a non-parallel configuration. Thus,
00.003 0.0011 0.0171 -0.0052 0.1322 0.0353
the rotational force was not fully transmitted to the shorter
00.004 0.0211 -0.0484 0.0265 0.0611 0.0134 shaft due to an improper engagement between the teeth of two
gears as illustrated in Fig. 4a. Another fault was generated by
…
loosening a bolt in a bearing cover that holds both a bearing
65.623 0.0106 0.0105 0.0413 -0.1881 0.0251 and a shaft in place, as depicted in Fig. 4b. As the bearing
cover becomes loose, the adjacent shafts, gears, and plates
may tend to rotate unstably. To generate a third fault type,
 Sujeong Baek et al. / Procedia Manufacturing 51 (2020) 316–323 321
6 Author name / Procedia Manufacturing 00 (2019) 000–000

non-parallel shafts and loose bearing cover were applied Training datasets without labels, those with corresponding
simultaneously. labels, and test datasets were divided as summarized in Table
Although the physical experimental setup for any fault type 7.
depicted in Fig. 4 seemed to generate distinguishable sensor
signals, enabling an abnormal state to be detected easily, Table 7. Datasets divided into test datasets, training datasets without labels,
and training datasets with corresponding labels for 5-fold cross-validation.
however, it was not simple to classify the two health states of
the system through a tr additional statistical detection method. The ratio of Training
Training
removed labels datasets with the
Because some acceleration signals from the normal state and among the
Test datasets datasets
corresponding
any abnormal state are extremely non-linear and non- training datasets
without labels
labels
stationary, as Fig. 5 illustrates, it was not straightforward to 25% Group 1 Group 2 Group 3, 4, 5
find significant differences between normal and abnormal
Group 1 Group 2, 3 Group 4, 5
system states. Therefore, we employed the proposed fault- 50%
detection method described in Section 2. 75% Group 1 Group 2, 3, 4 Group 5

20% Group 2 Group 1 Group 3, 4, 5

3.2. Experimental results
In order to identify the performance of the proposed
method, we collected and analyzed five vibration signals in 30
no-fault and 30 fault states (of three different fault types) of
the bearing-shaft system. To identify the performance of the
derived classification model, 5-fold cross-validation was
conducted. In particular, the performance of self-training
methods was dependent on the ease of finding local optima in
initially labeled datasets, so it was necessary to conduct k-fold
cross-validation. Four-fifths of the total datasets were used in
a training phase to identify abnormal vibration patterns.
Although we had fully labeled entire datasets as a normal or
an abnormal state, for performance measurement we needed to
artificially generate partially labeled datasets for semi-
supervised classification. To do this, one quarter, one half, or
three-fourths of the training datasets were randomly selected
for removal of corresponding labels in a training phase. For
example, we assigned each dataset to one of five groups.
50% Group 2 Group 1, 3 Group 4, 5
Group 2 Group 1, 3, 4 Group 5
75%
…
75% Group 5 Group 1, 2, 3 Group 4
Based on the multivariate discretization described in
Section 2.1, we transformed the collected sensor signals into a
series of DSVs. We obtained the absolute value of every
measurement and found the optimal PDF of the accelerometer
signal. Digitized bins were generated according to user-
defined discretization parameters (i.e., seven bins and an 80%
bin width threshold) and the computed PDFs. Subsequently,
measurements of a sensor within a certain time segment were
converted into the corresponding label, and five labels in the
same time segment were considered as one DSV at that time
segment. Fig. 1 illustrates how a series of DSVs of an
accelerometer signal is formed from the signal collected
during the normal state of the bearing-shaft system. In one
case, three-fifths of the total datasets only had the correct
corresponding labels, and we used them in the first training
phase (i.e., the first row in Table 7). About 177 DSVs were
found in the training datasets and representative DSVs for
each system state (one normal state and three abnormal states)
are summarized in Table 8.

Table 8. An example of the representative DSV for each system state when
Fig. 4. Controlling the bearing-shaft system to generate a fault: (a) fault type three-fifths of the total datasets had the correct corresponding labels and were
1 (non-parallel shafts); (b) fault type 2 (a loose bearing cover). used in the first training phase (i.e., the first row in Table 7).

System state Representative DSV

Normal state �𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� ��

Abnormal state (Fault type 1) �𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� ��

Abnormal state (Fault type 2) �𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� ��

Abnormal state (Fault type 3) �𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� , 𝑙𝑙�� ��

A representative DSV means that the DSV only occurred in

Fig. 5. An example of the magnitude of accelerometer signals in different
system states: (a) a normal state; (b) fault type 1 (non-parallel shafts); (c)
fault type 2 (a loose bearing cover); (d) Fault type 3 (non-parallel shafts and
a loose bearing cover simultaneously).
the target state; however, it was never found in other states. As
shown in Table 8, a certain DSV discovered from an abnormal
state had DSVs containing different labels in the normal state.
Hence it was quite simple to distinguish the abnormal states
from the normal state; as observed with the representative
322 Sujeong Baek et al. / Procedia Manufacturing 51 (2020) 316–323
Author name / Procedia Manufacturing 00 (2019) 000–000
DSV from fault type 3 against the representative DSV from
normal state in Table 8. However, as several of the DSVs
found in abnormal states showed only slight differences from
the DSVs of the normal states, still it was not straightforward
to detect abnormal vibrations using traditional statistical
methods. Note that these representative DSVs depends on the
setting of k-fold cross validation.
To examine the effectiveness of the proposed detection
method, we implemented three methods for detecting
abnormal vibrations: supervised fault detection [11] with the
labeled training datasets; the original self-training-based,
semi-super vised classification; and the proposed detection
method (semi-supervised classification considering the
number of DSV occurrences). We measured detection
performance by calculating the number of discernible
abnormal states in the test datasets. According to our previous
supervised fault detection research [11], a discernible
abnormal state was defined as a system state in which one or
more abnormal patterns are detected.
Table 9 summarizes the abnormal vibration detection
performance of each label removal regime. Regardless of the
degree of label removal (i.e., of the prevalence of unlabeled
datasets) among the training sets, semi-supervised
classifications showed better detection. As the ratio of
removed labels in training datasets increased, semi-supervised
methods provided higher detection rates, whereas supervised
detection worsened. Semi-supervised classification also can
provide more accurate detection results for unknown DSVs
that are never found in the training DSVs. In addition, we
were able to identify the effect of considering the occurrence
numbers of DSVs with an increasing proportion of unlabeled
DSVs.
Table 9. The number of discernible abnormal states as a percentage of total
abnormal states (=30 abnormal states) for supervised fault detection with the
labeled training datasets, for the original self-training based semi-supervised
classification, and the proposed detection method. A number beside the
percentage denotes the exact number of discernible states among total
abnormal states.
The proposed
The ratio of Supervised The original
detection
removed labels fault detection self-training
method
among the with the based semi-
(considering
training labeled training supervised
the DSV’s
datasets datasets classification
occurrences)
25% 90% (27.0) 93% (28.0) 93% (28.0)
50% 89% (26.8) 86% (25.8) 97% (29.0)
75% 85% (25.4) 91% (27.2) 100% (30.0)
4. Conclusion
In this study, we demonstrate semi-supervised abnormal
vibration detection in a constructed bearing-shaft system that
can exhibit three different fault states based on the placement
of the shafts and the tightness of a bearing cover. These fault
states are analyzed by identifying fault patterns based on the
DSVs from five vibration sensor signals. Because time series
discretization reduces the number of datasets, we consider as
input variables both the transformed DSVs and the
7
corresponding occurrence numbers of input DSVs in normal
and abnormal states. As a result, the proposed method
provides higher detection performance regardless of the ratio
of unlabeled DSVs in the training datasets. In particular, the
proposed method correctly determines novel unknown DSVs
in the test phases by considering the occurrence of DSVs.
Although the primary objectives of this study were
achieved, further work is needed to overcome the limitations
of the present study: The detection performance of the
proposed method was rarely affected by any alternations of
the test conditions (such as a different motor speed, a different
gear ratio, and different lengths of shafts), but, it required a
new training model with the identical architecture of the
proposed method, because of the different signal
characteristics of the collected data. Therefore, we need (i) to
test the performance of the proposed detection method across
different test conditions. In addition, it is also necessary (ii) to
generalize the analysis results using more diverse types of
faults, (iii) to validate and verify the proposed method in early
detection of degradation before fault occurrence, and (iv) to
discuss how to apply the method to unsupervised problems.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Research
Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea
government (MSIT) (No. 2019R1G1A1097478).
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