Electronics and Communications in Japan, Part 3, Vol. 81, No.

10, 1998
Translated from Denshi Joho Tsushin Gakkai Ronbunshi, Vol. J80-A, No. 9, September 1997, pp. 1379–1387

Application of Wavelet Transforms to Compression of

Mechanical Vibration Data

Makoto Tanaka and Masatoshi Sakawa

Faculty of Engineering, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan 739

Mitsuharu Abe

NTT Co., Hiroshima, Japan 730

Kosuke Kato

Faculty of Engineering, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan 739

SUMMARY
To detect abnormality of rotating machines in facto-
ries and power generating plants, the vibration data of the
machines are used as a guide to express abnormal phenom-
ena. In order to improve the diagnostic accuracy of the
rotating machine diagnostic system, the storage and analy-
sis of a large amount of vibration data is important. For
efficient data storage and transmission, data compression is
indispensable. In this paper, with a view to reducing data
storage capacity and the transmission capacity in the rotat-
ing machine diagnostic system, compression of machine
vibration data is attempted. In the proposed compression
system, wavelet transforms are used so that the distortion
generated in compression and reconstruction have minimal
effect on the diagnostics. Considering the mode of system
usage, a compression system is proposed that maximizes
the compression ratio at allowable distortions. In order to
evaluate the overall performance of the proposed compres-
sion system, data compression by several orthogonal wav-
elets composed of Daubechies bases and those generated
by DCT (discrete cosine transform) are compared. It is
shown that the system using the wavelet with a higher-order
tap has the highest compression performance and that the
compression factor is about 3 to 8 in the allowable distortion
range of 1 to 10%. ©1998 Scripta Technica, Electron
Comm Jpn Pt 3, 81(10): 16–25, 1998
Key words: Wavelet transform; data compression;
rotating machine; vibration data.
1. Introduction
Various machines are installed in power generating
stations and factories. If these machines are accurately
synchronized, the plants function as intended. In order to
maintain the machinery in normal condition, maintenance
operations are important. However, detection of malfunc-
tions and diagnosis mostly depend on the experience and
knowledge of maintenance personnel. An automatic diag-
nostic system is desirable with a view to reducing the load

CCC1042-0967/98/100016-10
16 © 1998 Scripta Technica
on the maintenance personnel and rationalizing the main-
tenance program.
For rotating machines often used in plants, various
rotating machine diagnostic systems have been developed.
A typical diagnostic technique common to all these systems
is the Fourier transform of the vibration waveform. The
diagnostics are carried out by using the low frequency
components, especially those lower than 1 kHz.
In order to improve the accuracy of diagnostic sys-
tems, it is important to understand the vibration charac-
teristics of the rotating machine to be diagnosed. To this
end, it is necessary to collect and analyze many vibration
data and to compare the diagnostic results and the mainte-
nance results. When the number of rotating machines is
extremely large, the amount of data treated by a diagnostic
system in data storage and data transmission is enormous.
Although the acceleration sensors often used as vibration
sensors can sense frequencies in the range exceeding 1 kHz,
they are rarely used for a bandwidth larger than 1 kHz.
However, these high frequency components are said to offer
the initial indications of a malfunction. Therefore, the main-
tenance and analysis of broadband vibration data contain-
ing high frequency components are important for
improvement of the accuracy of the diagnostic system.
Hence, in this paper the compression of machine vibration
data is attempted, with a view to reducing storage capacity
and transmission capacity.
In the area of data compression, the discrete cosine
transform (DCT) is often used, especially for compression
of speech and image data. However, data compression using
DCT is accompanied by local distortion called block dis-
tortion. Such distortions are considered to cause false ab-
normality diagnosis of a rotating machine. In this paper, we
describe data compression with wavelet transforms that do
not generate block distortion. By considering the mode of
usage of the system, a compression system is proposed that
maximizes the compression ratio under the given distortion
allowed.
2. Machine Vibration Data and
Compression
The data used in this paper are vibration data on a
rotating machine measured by the system shown in Fig. 1.
The vibration of the rotating machine is measured
with the sensor attached to the axle support of the machine
and is transformed to analog electrical signals. Analog
electrical signals from the sensor are digitized by an A-D
converter after passing through a low pass filter. The digit-
ized signals are sent to a computer where they are stored or
analyzed.
17
Fig. 1. Diagnosis system for rotating machinery.
If all of the broadband signals in the 5 kHz to 10 kHz
interval from the sensor are stored for several hundred
machines for an entire plant, the amount of data per day
may reach several tens of megabytes. To effectively record
and maintain such enormous data sets, data compression is
indispensable. Since these data are used in abnormality
diagnostics for the machines, the allowable error in the
reconstructed data must be held to a level that does not
affect the diagnosis.
Based on the requirements that
· degradation caused by compression and recon-
struction should not adversely affect the accuracy
of diagnosis of machine condition, and
· since the requirement for a high accuracy is
stronger than that for a high compression ratio,
supplemental memory devices for preserving the
compressed data are expected to be cheaper in the
future,
a compression system is proposed in which the user speci-
fies the allowable distortion ratio, and the compression
system is maximized under this condition.
3. Wavelet Transform and Compression
Reconstruction System
In the areas of compression of speech and image data,
the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is often used as a
method to transform the original data. In the case of DCT
in which the original data are divided into blocks and
transformed, distortions called block distortion are gener-
ated at the edges of blocks. The generation of block distor-
tion is periodic. Since frequency analysis is used in general
as a method to extract characteristics in the abnormality
diagnosis of rotating machines, these distortions can de-
grade diagnostic accuracy. Since block distortions occur
locally with a large amplitude, they may be diagnosed

Fig. 2. An example of waveform for bearing defect.
falsely as vibration waveforms caused by damage in the
bearings. On the other hand, the wavelet transform does not
divide the original waveform data into blocks, and no block
distortion occurs, so that the probability of false diagnosis
is reduced.
Furthermore, since the wavelet transform allows a
great deal of freedom in the selection of the shape of the
basis, it is possible to provide processing that depends on
the waveform data of the object, in contrast to the Fourier
transform method. For these reasons, vibration data com-
pression is attempted by using the wavelet transform in this
paper. By using several of the orthonormal bases with
compact support proposed by Daubechies [1], the vibration
data of actual machines are compressed, and the compres-
sion performances are compared. In what follows, the algo-
rithm of the wavelet transform used in this research is
described in addition to the configuration of the compres-
sion and reconstruction system.
where Z is an integer ensemble.
It is not easy to construct wavelets forming an or-
thonormal basis. Presently, several orthonormal wavelets
are known. Of these, a configuration method for the wav-
elets with a compact support was presented by Daubechies
[1].
Also, the orthonormal wavelet transformation is ex-
pressed as filtering by a filter bank with two divisions (see
Fig. 3.)
Let the signal sequence be aj(n), and let the operators
H and G on l2 be defined as follows:
(3)
If the operators (H, G) are considered as filters, then h(×)
and g(×) are their coefficients. In the wavelet transform
using the algorithm according to S. Mallat, the operator H
plays the role of a low pass filter and G, that of a high pass
filter. Every time the algorithm is repeated, a division into
two bands is carried out for the low frequency region.
The discretized signal aj(n) is multiplied by a mutually-
orthogonal low-pass and high-pass filter pair (H, G). The

3.1. Decomposition and reconstruction

algorithm using the wavelet transform

A wavelet is a set of functions {Ya,b} generated by

the expansion and parallel shift of one function y

(1)
Recently, it has been found that this is a useful tool in
mathematics, physics, and engineering. In this equation,
Y(x) characterizes the wavelet transform and is called the
mother wavelet or analyzing wavelet; a is a parameter used
to expand or compress the mother wavelet, and b is a
parameter for parallel shift.
If the mother wavelet function Y(x) is appropriately
selected and the parameters a and b are adequately discret-
ized, the wavelet function set can be made an orthonormal
basis of the set of square integrable functions L2(R) (where
R is the set of real numbers). Usually, the parameter a is
discretized in powers of 2, and b is an integer. In this case,
the orthonormal basis of L2(R) provided by the orthogonal
wavelet functions is

(2) Fig. 3. The algorithm of S. Mallat.

18
output Gx of the higher frequency side is taken out without
further processing and is retained as data (d1), whereas the
lower side output Hx is further divided by (H, G). By
repeating this process J times, the outputs d1, d2, . . . , dJ
and the remaining component aJ can be obtained.
Similarly, the inverse wavelet transform__is _defined
_ as
follows by means of the inverse filter pair (H, G) and its
filter coefficients (h~(×), g
~(×)).

Fig. 5. Wavelet y(x).

(4)
These filter coefficients satisfy the following conditions:
3.2. Vibration data compression by the
wavelet transform

The vibration data subbands decomposed by the wav-

(5)
where d is the Kronecker delta.
The index N in the above is called the tap number and
is a parameter used to determine the shape of the basis
functions. As N is increased, the basis function takes a
smoother and more complex shape. Also, the localization
of the discrete filter in the frequency region is enhanced. As
an example, the scaling function (the basis function for the
low pass filter) and the wavelet (the basis function for the
high pass filter) for N = 2 are indicated in Figs. 4 and 5.
elet transform are subsequently quantized and compressed
through a decoder.
Based on the reasoning described in the previous
section, let us consider the formation of a quantizer that
carries out an optimum bit assignment in accordance with
the allowable square error prescribed for the application.
The average code length per data point obtained
through
__ the quantizer is called the rate and is expressed by
R. The __ quantizer is designed in such a way that the average
rate R (the quantization bit number per data) is minimized
in accordance with the allowable square error provided by
the user.
For each signal, the distortion caused by quantization
is e dj for dj and e J for aJ.
Then, the allowable square error g0 is

(6)

In this paper, for convenience, the allowable square error

g0 is given as a percentage of the dynamic range of the
original waveform as follows:

(7)

where X(k) is the data sequence of the original waveform,

Fig. 4. Scaling function f(x).
and gp is the allowable distortion rate specified by the user
and expressed as a percentage.
When Rdj bits are assigned to the quantization of the
subsignal dj, and __ RJ bits to the quantization of aJ, the
average bit rate R necessary for maintenance for each data
sample is

19
 (8)
Also, by using the bit rates Rdj and RJ of each subsig-
nal, the distortions edj and eJ due to quantization are ex-
pressed:
(9)
where Kdj (KJ) is a value dependent only on the dispersion
of dj(aJ). If it is assumed that the data are uniformly distrib-
uted at each signal, Kdj = (Qdj )2 / 12 and KJ = (QJ)2 / 12 [5].
Also, Qdj (QJ) is the dynamic range of the data decomposed
into subsignals.
Hence,
(10)
In contrast to the research__by J. Chen, this research forms a
quantizer that minimizes R under the allowable square error
g0 specified by the user.
This problem can be formulated as follows
(11)
(12)
If the above optimization problem is solved by means of the
Lagrange undetermined multiplier method, we obtain
(13)
Figure 6 shows the entire configuration of the com-
pression and expansion system, including the wavelet trans-
form and quantizer. The original data are applied to the
orthogonal wavelet transform (WT) and are divided into the
subsignal {(dj)1£j£J} and aJ. For each subsignal, the dy-
namic range Qdj (QJ) of the decomposed data is computed.
By using Eq. (13), the necessary assigned bit rate is com-
puted. Subsequently, the real value data of each subsignal
20
Fig. 6. Compression and expansion system.
are transformed by the quantizer to integer values consist-
ing of the computed assigned bits, thereby completing the
quantization.
The quantized data are then coded by an entropy
encoder so that compressed data are generated. Although
various algorithms are used in entropy encoders, the present
research uses LHA, a freeware package using the Lempel-
Zip coding (sliding dictionary method) and Huffman codes
[7].
The reverse process is used to restore the compressed
data. The compressed data are decoded by the entropy
decoder and are returned to real values through a reverse
quantizer. Then, the restored data can be obtained by means
of the inverse wavelet transform (IWT).
4. Compression and Restoration of
Mechanical Vibration Data
4.1. Summary of experiment
The main diagnosis items considered in rotating ma-
chine abnormality diagnosis are bearing damage in the
rotating machine axis support and load imbalance. The
diagnostic system needs to distinguish these various mal-
functions. The user then carries out compression and resto-
ration of the vibrating wave form by providing an allowable
square error that will not degrade malfunction recognition
accuracy.
In order to completely investigate the compression
characteristics for each imaginable malfunction mode, the
experiment was carried out using five types of data: bearing
in the normal state, unbalanced condition, artificial damage
to the inner race of the bearing, artificial damage to the outer
race, and bearing without oil. The vibration data were
sampled at 32768 points by 16 bit quantization at a sam-
pling frequency of 20 kHz. The data size per wave form was
65536 bytes.
Since the actual compression ratio (CR) is different
depending on the basis functions used, the experiment was
carried out using nine types of wavelets developed by
Daubechies for one set of data to be compressed and, for
comparison, the DCT, which is often used for data compres-
sion, so that the optimum basis function was determined.
In order to divide to as low a frequency as possible,
the wavelet transform was carried out with 11 levels while
the DCT was carried out by dividing the original waveform
into 16 blocks (with 2048 points per block) so that the final
resolution coincided with that of the wavelet transform.
Hence, the wavelet transform and DCT can be compared
by using the same quantizers and coders.
The wave form transformed by DCT originally forms
equally divided subbands. Since a quantizer identical to that
for the wavelet transform was used, the quantization was
such that this subband component is octave-divided.
The compression ratio (CR) is defined as follows:
Total numberof bytes of the original wavefor m (65536 bytes)
CR =
Total number of bytes of the compressed waveform
For the allowable distortion rate presented by the user, ten
values were used, from 1% to 10%, for verification.
4.2. Experimental results and discussion
Figures 7 and 8 show the R(D) function for each basis
function (between__ the allowable distortion rate and the
average bit rate R). If the average bit rate is high, the effect
Fig. 7. R(D) function for each basis function (normal
bearing).
Fig. 8. R(D) function for each basis function (outer race
defect).
of compression is small. The experiment was carried out
with five vibration waveforms and ten basis functions (one
for DCT and nine for wavelet transforms). Due to space
limitations, the results are presented only for two typical
kinds of data (normal, and damage in the outer bearing race)
and for six basis functions.
The solid lines and dotted lines indicate the theoreti-
(14) cal average bit rates, and the solid lines and dotted lines with
symbols indicate the actual average bit rates. In these fig-
ures, the experimental data are located above the theoretical
values. The reason for this is as follows. The theoretical
R(D) function takes continuous values were the discrete
values were used for the quantized bits. Therefore, the
values are rounded to integers so that the distortion is
contained within the allowed range.
The shape of the R(D) function changes according to
the tap number. As the tap number is increased, the R(D)
function is shifted downward almost in parallel. It was
found that a basis with a high tap number (14 to 20) is
suitable for compression. Further, compared to compres-
sion by DCT with cosine functions as the basis functions,
the wavelet transform can accomplish quantization with a
smaller average bit rate (about 0.5 to 1 bit in comparison
with DCT) for all vibration waveforms. In the wavelet
transform, the basis function used as the filter becomes
smoother and takes a more complex shape as the tap number
is increased, so that a shape with the characteristics of the
original waveform can be approximated. The fact that the
basis functions resemble the original waveform implies that
the latter can be represented with a smaller number of basis
functions. Therefore, it is possible to concentrate the expan-
sion coefficients in a few subbands. An effective compres-
sion can be carried out by assigning high bit rates only to
such a band.
The RMS (root mean square) of the reconstructed
waveform relative to the original waveform is presented in
Figs. 9 and 10. For all allowable distortion rates specified,
21
 Fig. 9. RMS error for each basis function (normal
bearing).
the actual distortion (the RMS value of g0) was smaller than
the theoretical value. This confirms that the quantization is
carried out at the allowable square error specified. There is
no significant difference in the RMS error for the DCT and
wavelet transform, because an optimum quantization was
carried out for each of them.
Figures 11 and 12 show expanded views of the origi-
nal waveform and the reconstructed waveform for an allow-
able distortion of 5% when DCT and wavelet transforms
were used for outer race defects in the bearing. The hori-
zontal axis indicates the data number of the sample point
per data. In these figures, the region near the data number
of 8200 is expanded. Also, one sample has a time width of
50 ms.
Fig. 10. RMS error for each basis function (outer race
defect).
22
Fig. 11. Original and reconstructed waveform using
DCT (outer race defect, distortion 5%).
For both DCT and wavelet transform waveforms, the
reconstructed waveforms exhibit high frequency distor-
tions. When the time width of one sample is considered,
these distortions are found to appear in the high frequency
band of 5 kHz to 10 kHz. Although not shown in this paper,
such high frequency distortions are not observed for the
allowable distortion rate of 1% or 2%. Figure 11 shows that
the reconstructed waveform by DCT is significantly dis-
torted near the center of the figure. This is the block distor-
tion characteristic of DCT. The magnitude is much larger
than the allowable distortion rate.
Figures 13 and 14 show the final compression ratios
for each basis function after the entropy coder subsequent
to quantization. No significant difference in compression
ratio is seen between DCT and the wavelet transform. This
Fig. 12. Original and reconstructed waveform using
WT (outer race defect, distortion 5%).
 Fig. 13. Compression ratio for each distortion (normal
bearing).
phenomenon does not coincide with the results obtained in
Fig. 8. This cause is probably as follows. Figures 15 and 16
show the assigned bit rate of the DCT and the wavelet
transform (with 16 taps) in each subband for the normal
bearing. In these figures, the horizontal axis indicates the
subband number. Subband number 1 indicates the maxi-
mum frequency component (5 kHz to 10 kHz) and subband
12 indicates the lowest frequency range (0 to 4.875 Hz).
Since the frequency range of each subband is octave-
divided, 32768/21 = 16384 data are quantized in subband 1
and 32768/211 = 16 data are in subbands 11 and 12. Hence,
effective compression can be carried out if smaller bit rates
are assigned at lower subband numbers.
Fig. 14. Compression ratio for each distortion (outer
race defect).
23
Fig. 15. Bit rate of each subband using DCT (normal
bearing).
From a comparison of these figures, it can be found
that the DCT assigns a higher bit rate than the wavelet
transform to higher frequency bands, such as subbands 1 to
3. Also, Fig. 17 plots the DCT coefficients versus frequency
number (with 0 the lowest indicating DCT) for the normal
bearing waveform. In this figure, it can be seen that peak
expansion coefficients appear only at specific frequencies
in subband 2. Therefore, the assigned bit rate is high in such
high-frequency subbands.
As seen above, DCT assigns a higher bit number than
the wavelet transform in higher frequency bands. Hence,
the fact that the compression ratios are not very different in
DCT and the wavelet transform is apparently a result of the
effective operation of the entropy coder in these subbands.
Fig. 16. Bit rate of each subband using WT (tap16)
(normal bearing).
 6.5, and 6.8 to 8.2, if the allowable distortion rate by the
user is 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively.
It was found that distortion is generated in the high
frequency band (5 kHz to 10 kHz) if the allowable distortion
rate is increased. In the future, it is necessary to investigate
how this waveform degradation affects the actual diagnosis
and how much is tolerated.
The eventual compression ratio obtained by DCT is
not very different from that given by the wavelet transform.
Since data compression by DCT generates large distortions
periodically, such distortions may be falsely diagnosed as
defects during the abnormality diagnosis of the rotating
machine. Therefore, the compression system proposed in
this research is considered more effective than that using
Fig. 17. Coefficient of DCT (normal bearing).
the ordinary DCT. A further advantage is the fact that the
allowable distortions can be set by the user.

Acknowledgments. In the present research, a free-

When optimum basis functions are further studied, it
ware LHA package was used as the entropy coder to com-
is found that the compression ratio is higher for higher tap
press the quantized data. The authors thank the author of
bases than for lower tap bases in the wavelet transform. This
the DOS version, Mr. H. Yoshizaki, and of the UNIX
result coincides with those in Figs. 7 and 8.
version, Mr. M. Oki.
In this paper, due to space limitations, the results are
not shown for all vibrating waveforms. However, in general
the basis function with 16 taps exhibited the best compres-
sion performance. The final compression ratio was 2.7 to REFERENCES
3.1 for an allowable distortion rate of 1%, and 4.8 to 6.5
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 AUTHORS (from left to right)

Makoto Tanaka (student member) graduated from Group II (Electrical Engineering), Hiroshima University, in 1989 and
completed the M.S. course at Kyushu University in 1991. He then joined Chugoku Electric Power. Presently, he is in the doctoral
program in system engineering at Hiroshima University. He has been engaged in research on plant equipment abnormality
diagnosis.

Masatoshi Sakawa (member) graduated from the Dept. of Mathematical Engineering, Kyoto University, in 1970 and
completed the doctoral course in 1975. In that year, he became a research associate in the Dept. of System Engineering, Kobe
University, where he became an associate professor in 1981. In 1987, he became a professor in the Dept. of Mathematical
Information, Iwate University. In 1990, he became a professor in the Dept. of Mathematical Engineering, Hiroshima University.
He has been engaged in research on decision making processes and applications in large systems, multiple objective systems,
and fuzzy systems. He holds a D.Eng. degree from Kyoto University. He is the author of Optimization of Linear Systems,
Optimization of Nonlinear Systems, Foundations for Applied Calculus, Foundation and Applications of Fuzzy Systems,
Foundations for Mathematical Systems, (all published by Morikita) and Fuzzy Sets and Interactive Multiobjective Optimization
(Plenum Press), as well as many papers.

Mitsuharu Abe graduated from Group II (Electrical Engineering), Hiroshima University, in 1993. He completed the M.S.
course in 1995. He then joined NTT. Presently, he is at the Chugoku Network Center, Long Distance Communication Division.

Kosuke Kato (member) graduated from the Dept. of Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering Science, Osaka University,
in 1991. In 1993, he completed the M.S. course, Dept. of Physics specializing in Bioengineering. In 1994, while a student in
the doctoral course, he became a research associate in the Dept. of Mathematical Engineering. He has been engaged in research
on data compression and system optimization algorithms and applications.

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