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A Reconfigurable Watchdog Agent® for Machine Health Prognostics

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 Published in 2008, International Journal of COMADEM; 11(3):2.

A Reconfigurable Watchdog Agent® for Machine Health Prognostics

Linxia Liao Haixia Wang Jay Lee

The University of Cincinnati, NSF I/UCR Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, 560 Rhodes Hall,
Cincinnati OH 45221. Phone: 513-556-3412
Email: liaol@email.uc.edu haixia.wang@uc.edu jay.lee@uc.edu

Linxia Liao is currently a Ph.D. student in Department of Mechanical Engineering at University

of Cincinnati, US and he is also working as a research assistant at the National Science
Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) for Intelligent
Maintenance Systems (IMS www.imscenter.net). His current research area focuses on the Design
of Reconfigurable Platform for Embedded Health Monitoring and Prognostics of Machine Tool
Systems.

Dr. Haixia Wang is a research associate in the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research
Center (I/UCRC) for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS) at the campus of Univ. of
Cincinnati. Her current research interest focuses on machinery and process prognostics and
health management, manufacturing process performance and quality improvement, and closed-
loop product life cycle service model studies. Haixia Wang received her B.S degree in
Mechanical Engineering from Shandong University at China, a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering
from Southeast University at China, a M.S. and a Ph.D in Industrial and Systems Engineering
from the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison at USA.

Dr. Jay Lee is Ohio Eminent Scholar and L.W. Scott Alter Chair Professor at the Univ. of
Cincinnati and is founding director of National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University
Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) on Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS
www.imscenter.net ) which is a multi-campus NSF Center of Excellence between the Univ. of
Cincinnati (lead institution), the Univ. of Michigan, and the Univ. of Missouri-Rolla in
partnerships with over 45 global companies including P&G, Toyota, GE Aviation, Boeing, AMD,
Caterpillar, Siemens, DaimlerChrysler, ETAS, Festo, Harley-Davidson, Honeywell, ITRI
(Taiwan), Komatsu, Omron, Samsung, Toshiba, Bosch, Parker Hannifin, BorgWarner, Spirit
Aerosystems, Nissan (Japan), Syncrude (Canada), and McKinsey & Company, etc. His current
research focuses on autonomic computing, embedded IT and smart prognostics technologies for
industrial and healthcare systems, design of self-maintenance and self-healing, systems, and
dominant design tools for product and service innovation. He also serves as honorary professor
and visiting professor for a number of institutions including, Cranfield Univ. in UK, Lulea Univ.
of Technology in Sweden, Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. in China, Univ. of Manchester, City Univ.
of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong PolyU., and Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in China, etc.
He is also a Fellow of ASME, SME, as well as International Society of Engineering Asset
Management (ISEAM).

ABSTRACT
®
This paper presents a scalable Watchdog Agent -based toolbox approach for machine health prognostics. The toolbox
consists of modularized embedded algorithms for signal processing and feature extraction, performance assessment,
diagnostics and prognostics, which can be reconfigured for different machinery prognostic applications, and can be
extensible and adaptable to most real-world machine situations. A decision making technique, Quality Function
Deployment (QFD)-based tool selection method, is applied for the automatic selection of algorithms from the Watchdog
Agent® toolbox using multiple criteria. In addition, the architecture for the Watchdog Agent®-based real-time remote
machinery prognostics and health management, which incorporates remote and embedded predictive maintenance
technologies, is presented. An industrial case involving the automatic tool changer of a machine tool is presented to
illustrate how the Watchdog Agent® toolbox can be used in diverse scenarios.
Keywords: Watchdog Agent® toolbox, Machine health assessment, Prognostics
1. INTRODUCTION
As machinery becomes more complex and
sophisticated, its reliability becomes more crucial. The
breakdown of one machine may result in the halt of the
whole production line in a facility. Regular
maintenance becomes a necessity to keep machinery as
reliable as possible. Looking back on the format of the
maintenance several approaches to conducting
maintenance exist such as reactive maintenance,
preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance.
Today, most machine field services depend on sensor-
driven management systems that provide alerts, alarms
and indicators of machine failure. Therefore, most
machine maintenance today is either purely reactive
(fixing or replacing equipment after it fails) or blindly
proactive (assuming a certain level of performance
degradation, with no input from the machinery itself,
and servicing equipment on a routine schedule whether
service is actually needed or not); both scenarios could
be extremely wasteful. In addition, in the case of
reactive maintenance, it’s already too late to prevent
the failure when an alarm sounds.
Rather than accepting the limitations of reactive
maintenance (or a “fail-and-fix” approach), world-class
companies are moving forwards towards “predict-and-
prevent” maintenance. A maintenance scheme, referred
to as Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) [1], was
developed by considering current degradation and its
evolution over time. CBM methods and practices have
been continuously improved for in recent decades to
provide sufficient warning of an impending failure on a
particular piece of equipment, allowing that equipment
to be maintained only when there is objective evidence
of an impending failure. In the past twenty years, a
significant number of health monitoring techniques,
tools and prognostic methods have been developed for
machinery. Sensor fusion techniques [2, 3] are widely
used to make use of the data collected from the
physical assets of the machinery. The monitoring data,
which consists of the measurements related to machine
performance, can include vibration, acoustic emissions,
cutting force, temperature, humidity, pressure,
moisture, voltage, current, etc. To make the data
understandable and interpretable, many signal
processing and feature extraction algorithms [4-6] are
used to extract the features that can best represent the
failure or degradation mechanisms. To build machinery
prognostics models, some researchers are working to
build physical models for fault detection and diagnosis
for special systems, like chillers [7]. This kind of
method has been proven effective in special cases;
although it is always not practical when accurate
knowledge of the whole system is not available.
Moreover, it is not easy to apply the same model to
other equipment; usually significant modification to the
model is involved in such applications. As an
alternative, data-driven models, which do not
incorporate the use of any system knowledge, have
been proposed for machine fault detection and
diagnosis. For example, logistic regression is used for
elevator system degradation detection [8]; support
vector machines is proposed in [9] for motor system
diagnosis; an artificial neural network is used in chiller
fault detection and diagnosis in [10]; an Hidden
Markov model is applied in [11] for tool wear
monitoring tasks and so on. Data-driven methods do
not need prior knowledge of the system, although the
measurement under various working conditions is
usually necessary. Such methods are not feasible when
certain measurements are not available, as is usually
the case for critical equipment. The hybrid approach
fuses the model-based information and sensor-based
information, and takes advantage of both model-driven
and data-driven approaches, through which more
reliable and accurate prognostic results can be
generated [12].
However, a major breakthrough has not been
made since. In spite of the progresses in CBM, many
fundamental issues still remain. For example:
1) Most research is conducted at the single
equipment level, and no infrastructure exists for
employing a real-time remote machinery
diagnosis and prognosis system for maintenance;
2) Most developed prognostics approaches are
application or equipment specific. A generic and
scalable prognostic methodology or toolbox
doesn’t exist;
3) Currently, methods are focused on solving the
problem of failure detection. The need for tools
for system performance assessment and
degradation prediction has not been well
addressed;
4) Many developed prediction algorithms have been
demonstrated in a laboratory environment, but
have yet to undergo validation in industry.
To address the aforementioned unmet needs,
Watchdog Agent®-based Intelligent Maintenance
Systems (IMS) has been presented by the IMS Center
[13] with a vision to develop a systematic approach in
advanced prognostics to enable products and systems
to achieve near-zero breakdown reliability and
performance.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 presents a systematic Watchdog Agent®-
based approach for machinery health prognostics. The
architecture for the Watchdog Agent®-based Real-time
Remote Machinery Prognostics and Health
Management (R2M-PHM) system is first presented.
Then a description of how to deploy the Watchdog
Agent® toolbox (a collection of algorithms for
prognostics), and which algorithm to use, is presented.
Section 3 uses the automatic tool changer of the rotary
machine as an example to illustrate how to select the
most appropriate algorithms for signal processing,
health assessment and performance prediction in
different scenarios. Section 4 gives the summary and
conclusion of this paper.
2. WATCHDOG AGENT®-BASED
INTELLIGENT MAINTENANCE SYSTEMS
Currently, most state-of-the-art manufacturing,
mining, farming, and service machines (e.g., elevators)
are actually quite “smart” in themselves. Many
sophisticated sensors and computerized components
are capable of delivering data concerning a machine’s
status and performance. The problem is that little or no
practical use is made of most of this data. Although the
necessary devices exist, a continuous and seamless
flow of information throughout entire processes has
been realized. Sometimes, this is because the available
data is not rendered in a useable, or instantly
understandable, form. More often, no infrastructure
exists for delivering the data over a network, or for
managing and analyzing the data, even if the devices
were networked.
Watchdog Agent®-based Real-time Remote
Machinery Prognostics and Health Management (R2M-
PHM) system has been recently developed by the IMS
Center. It focuses on developing innovative
prognostics algorithms and tools, as well as remote and
embedded predictive maintenance technologies to
predict and prevent machine failures.
2.1 Watchdog Agent®-based R2M-PHM
Platform
The reconfigurable and scalable Watchdog
Agent®-based R2M-PHM platform being developed by
the IMS Center expands the well-known Open System
Architecture for Condition-Based Maintenance (OSA-
CBM) standard [14] by including real-time remote
machinery diagnosis and prognosis systems and
embedded Watchdog Agent® technology.
A “digital doctor” inspired by biological
perceptual systems and machine psychology theory,
the Watchdog Agent® consists of embedded
computational prognostic algorithms and a software
toolbox for predicting degradation of devices and
systems. It is being built to be extensible and adaptable
to most real-world machine situations. Once the health
related information is saved to the database, the
diagnostic and prognostic outputs of the Watchdog
Agent®, mounted on all the machinery of interest, can
then used for maintenance decision making. The lean
and necessary information for maintenance can then be
determined and published to the internet through an
embedded web server.
The software system of the Watchdog Agent®-
based IMS platform consists of two parts: the
embedded side software and the remote side software.
The embedded side software is the software running on
the Watchdog Agent® hardware platform, which
includes a communication module, a command
analysis module, a task module, an algorithm module,
a function module, and a DAQ module. The
communication module is responsible for
communicating with the remote side via TCP/IP
protocol. The command analysis module is used to
analyze different commands coming from the remote
side. The task module includes multi-thread scheduling
and management. The algorithm module contains
specific watchdog agent tools. The function module
has several auxiliary functions such as channel
configuration, security configuration, and email list and
so on. The DAQ module performs A/D conversion
using either interrupt or software trigger to get data
from different sensors. The remote side software is the
software running on the remote computers. It is
implemented by ActiveX control technology and can
be used as a component of the Internet Explorer
Browser. The remote side software is mainly composed
of a communication module and a user interface
module. The communication module is used for
communicating with the embedded site via TCP/IP
protocol. The user interface has different visualization
tools to present the equipment health information.
A four-layer infrastructure for the developed
system setup is illustrated in Figure 1. The data
acquisition layer consists of multiple wireless sensors
which obtain data from multiple machines in the plant
or even in the outside field. An Ethernet connection is
set up between the Watchdog Agent® platform and the
controllers on the machine tools in order to collect
useful controller signals. The Watchdog Agent®
platform is located between the data acquisition layer
and the network layer. The machine data is processed
locally and converted into performance-related
information before it is sent to the Internet. The
network layer will utilize either traditional Ethernet
connections or wireless connections for
communication between the Watchdog Agent®
platform and the Internet. A wireless sensor network
access point is connected to the wireless router to send
the vibration data to the Watchdog Agent® platform,
which is also connected to the wireless router to
publish the health information through the Internet. A
firewall is put between the Internet and the wireless
router to provide secure communication and to protect
the Watchdog Agent® platform from outside malicious
attacks. The application layer contains an application
server and an information database. The application
server controls the behavior of the Watchdog Agent®
platform and provides services between the enterprise
users’ requests and the information database. The
information database contains all the asset health
information including the health situation, historical
performance and basic information of the assets and so
on. The enterprise layer offers a user-friendly interface
and decision support tools for practitioners and
engineers to access the equipment information, and
make maintenance decisions via web-based human
machine interface.

Figure 1 System Architecture for R2M-PHM System

®
2.2 Watchdog Agent Toolbox for Multi-sensor
Performance Assessment and Prognostics
The Watchdog Agent® toolbox, with autonomic
computing capabilities, is able to convert critical
performance degradation data into health features and
quantitatively assess their confidence value to further
predict trends so that proactive actions can be taken
before potential failures occur. As illustrated in Figure
2, data obtained from the embedded sensors on the
machines, from the maintenance database and from
manually input working conditions, are transformed
into multiple-regime features by selecting appropriate
algorithms for signal processing and feature extraction.
In the feature space, health indices are obtained by
statistically detecting the value shifts of features by
selecting appropriate algorithms for health
assessment/evaluation; and the future machine
degradation tendency is predicted by applying
appropriate performance prediction algorithms to the
health indices; a dynamic health feature radar chart,
which shows the health condition of the critical
components, is then presented for the users’ reference.

Figure 2 Watchdog Agent®: A Systematic Approach for Machine Health Prognostics

The Watchdog Agent® toolbox enables one to
quantitatively assess and predict performance
degradation levels of key product components, and to
determine the root causes of failure [15-17], thus
making it possible to physically realize closed-loop
product life cycle monitoring and management.
Degradation assessment is conducted after the critical
properties of a process or machine are identified and
measured by sensors. It is expected that the
degradation process will alter the sensor readings that
are being fed into the Watchdog Agent®, and thus
enable it to assess and quantify the degradation by
quantitatively describing the corresponding change in
sensor signatures. In addition, a model of the process
or piece of equipment that is being considered, or
available application specific knowledge, can be used
to aid the degradation process description, provided
that such a model and/or such knowledge exist. The
prognostic function is realized through trending and
statistical modeling of the observed process
performance signatures and/or model parameters.
Figure 3 Modular Structure of the Watchdog Agent® Toolbox
Signal processing and feature extraction
decompose multi-sensory data into a feature space,
which is related to the health assessment or diagnosis
tasks. Health assessment is the evaluation of the
overlap between the most recent feature space and that
during normal product operation. This overlap is
continuously transformed into a Confidence Value (CV)
ranging from 0 to 1 (0-unacceptable and 1-normal)
over time for evaluating the deviation of the most
recent behavior from normal behavior or baseline.
Health diagnosis is the analysis of the patterns
embedded in the data to determine what previous
observed fault has occurred. Performance prediction
involves the extrapolation of the behavior of the
process signatures over time, and the prediction of their
behavior in the future.
In order to facilitate the use of Watchdog Agent®
in a wide variety of applications, with various
requirements and limitations regarding the character of
signals, available processing power, memory and
The toolbox consists of a collection of state-of-
the-art machine learning algorithms and data
preprocessing tools, some of which have been used in
past projects, for predicting the degradation or
performance loss of devices, process, and systems. The
current tools employed in the signal processing and
feature extraction, performance assessment, diagnostics
and prognostics modules of Watchdog Agent®
functionality are summarized in Figure 3.
storage capabilities, limited space, power consumption,
user preferences, etc., the performance assessment
module of the Watchdog Agent® has been realized in
the form of a modular, open architecture toolbox. The
toolbox consists of different prognostics tools,
including neural network-based, time-series based,
wavelet-based and hybrid joint time-frequency
methods, etc., for predicting the degradation or
performance loss of devices, processes, products and
systems. The open architecture of the toolbox allows
one to easily add new solutions to the performance
assessment modules, as well as to easily interchange
different tools, depending on the needs of the
application.
To enable rapid deployment, a Quality Function
Deployment (QFD) based selection method had been
developed to provide a general suggestion to aid in tool
selection; this is especially critical for those industry
users who have little knowledge about the available
algorithms. QFD was developed by Yoji Akao in the
1960s and provides a structured framework for
concurrent engineering that ensures that the “voice of
the customer” is incorporated into all phases of product
development [18]. In the context of automatic tool
selection, the QFD method is used to calculate the
weight for each tool under the constraints of user-
defined condition priorities. The Analytical Hierarchy
Process (AHP) method is utilized to enhance the QFD
implementation by using a quantitative method. The
AHP method is used to make an effective decision
based on pair-wise comparison of each alternative
against various application conditions. More detail of
this method is described in [19]. The AHP-enhanced
QFD selection method gives a suggestion for the most
appropriate tool under different application conditions.
New tools will be continuously developed and
added to the modular, open architecture Watchdog
Agent® toolbox based on the development procedure,
Problem definition &
constraints
Tool selection
Prototyping &
testing
No
Accepted
Yes
Deployment
Figure 4 Flowchart for Developing Watchdog Agent® Tools
3. INDUSTRIAL CASE STUDY
Machining systems, such as Computer Numerical
Control (CNC) machine tools, are used for independent
parts machining, tooling fabrication and are therefore
integrated into the manufacture of products. As the
system become more complex and sophisticated, the
reliability is increasingly crucial. The breakdown of
one component of the system may result in the halt of
the whole production line in a facility. From machine
tool manufacturers’ maintenance record, Automatic
Tool Changer (ATC) is one of the components which
fail the most. Therefore, the ATC is used as an
example to illustrate how to use the Watchdog Agent-
based approach for prognostics in different situations.
3.1 System Setup and Data Acquisition
as shown in Figure 4. In the problem definition and
constraints step, all the system requirements and
constraints, health monitoring and prognostics
requirements, trade studies, such as cost/benefit
analyses, to determine the monitoring and prognostics
features are completed. To tackle a specific prognostics
problem, appropriate tools are selected by the tool
selection method mentioned above, or new tools are
developed for special situations. In the tool selection
step, the parameters of the selected, or newly
developed, tools need to be specified by training the
models with historical data. The models will then be
programmed and tested by an evaluation procedure. If
satisfactory results are achieved, an in-house prototype
of the system will be built and tested. The finalized
system will be deployed on a commercially available
hardware platform for industrial applications.
Parameter & tool
selection
Program
development
No
Evaluation
Yes
Vibration signal analysis is a widely used method
for detecting defective machine components. If the
ATC develops a mechanical defect such as cam wear,
tool drop or tool change position error, the vibration
signal, which is taken when the ATC hits the spindle,
will deviate from the normal condition. Hence,
vibration data is obtained to analyze the mechanical
degradation of the ATC. If the control logic or the
Programming Logic Control (PLC) performs
abnormally, the timing of the control steps will be
different from those during normal operation.
Therefore, timing windows from the controller are also
monitored.
For each machine tool, a Kistler 8141A1
accelerometer is installed on the spindle housing to
obtain the vibration signals during the tool change
process. The raw data goes through the Kistler
5127B01 signal conditioning box to the Watchdog
Agent® platform by using Direct Memory Access In this case, timing windows from the controller is
(DMA) data acquisition technique. ATC timing widow also collected. In Figure 6, the arrows represent the
of each tool change cycle is also obtained from the eight steps of a tool changing process which are: Select
controller via an Ethernet connection to the Watchdog
tool; Tool topple down; Arm rotate 0°-> 65°; Unclamp
Agent® platform. The sampling rate for vibration is 10
kHz, and the sampling rate for controller signal is 75 tool; Arm pull down, rotate 180°, raise; Clamp tool;
Hz. Arm rotate 65°-> 0°; Tool return. In the steps, 15
Vibration signals, from both a normal condition and commands and statuses for the tool changing process
a faulty condition, are collected and shown in Figure 5. are monitored, as listed in Table 1.
It is difficult to determine which signal is indicative of
a normal condition and which one is a faulty condition
by just looking at the data.
Table 1.

Figure 6 Timing Widow from Controller

Figure 5 Raw Vibration Data

Table 1 Command and Status Description of Tool Changing Process

Index Name Type Description
1 TF-KP Command T-code finish keep
2 TCON Status Magazine count
3 ATCDN Command ATC holder down
4 ATCUP Command ATC holder up
5 MHDP Status ATC holder down
6 MHUP Status ATC holder up
7 ATCY Command M06 cycle run
8 ATCYS1 Command M06 arm turn 65 command
9 ATCYS3 Command M06 arm turn command
10 ATCYS5 Command M06 arm turn original command
11 PRS_5 Status Arm origin detect
12 PRS_6 Status Arm middle detect
13 PRS_7 Status Arm stop detect
14 SPCLSW Status Tool clamp
15 SPULSW Status Tool unclamp
 2
3.2 Signal Processing and Feature Selection e j ,i c ij , k
k (5)
3.2.1 Introduction to the Technical Background
Fisher’s Linear Discrimination Criterion
Wavelet Packet Analysis (WPA) Fisher’s linear discrimination criterion [23] was
Usually, the vibration signals of defective used as a criterion function and is defined as
components are highly structured and can be grouped 2
into two categories: sustained defects and intermittent i, fl m, f l
defects [20]. For sustained defects, Fourier-based J f l i, m 2 2
analysis, which uses sinusoidal functions as base i, fl m, f l
(6)
functions, provides an ideal candidate for extraction of
these narrow-band signals [4]. For intermittent defects, for two-class problems where i , fl
, m , fl
are the mean
2
signals often demonstrate a non-stationary, transient
values of the lth feature, and fl, for class i and m. i , fl
,
nature [4]. Wavelet packet transform (WPT) provides a 2
very powerful tool for non-stationery signal analysis. are the variances of the lth feature, and fl for class
m , fl
Features can be extracted from signals that combine i and m respectively.
stationary and non-stationary characteristics with
arbitrary time-frequency resolution by using WPT. Principle Component Analysis (PCA)
WPT is an extension of wavelet transform (WT) that Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is one of the
provides complete level-by-level decomposition [21]. most commonly used statistical methods for reducing
The wavelet packets are particular linear dimensionality by transforming the original features
combinations of wavelets [22]. The wavelet packets into a new set of uncorrelated features. Karhunen-
inherit properties such as orthogonality, smoothness Loève Transform (KLT) is a linear dimensionality
and time-frequency localization from their selection procedure that is related to PCA, the goal of
corresponding wavelet functions. A wavelet packet is a which is to transform a given data set X of dimension
i
function with three indices, j ,k (t ) in which integers i, j, N to an alternative data set Y of a smaller dimension M
and k are the modulation or oscillation parameter, the (M<N). Equivalently, we are seeking to find the matrix
scale parameter, and the translation parameter Y which is the Karhunen-Loève transform of matrix X:
respectively. Y AT X
(7)
j
i
t 2 2 i j
2 t k in which AT is the Karhunen-Loève transform matrix.
j,k
i=1,2,.. (1) By choosing the eigenvectors corresponding to the M
The first wavelet is referred to as the mother largest eigenvalues of the correlation matrix of X, the
wavelet, or analyzing wavelet. In this application, mean square error (MSE) between the input X and its
Daubechies wavelet 4 (DB4, shown in figure 1), which projection is minimized.
is a kind of compactly supported wavelet, is used as the
mother wavelet. The following wavelets i for i = 2, 3.2.2 Signal Processing by WPA
3 … are obtained from the following recursive In this case, as we can see in Figure 5, the raw
relationships: vibration data is non-stationary as it contains two major
impacts. Hence, Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT),
2i i
t 2 h k 2t k (2) using a rich library of redundant bases with arbitrary
k time-frequency resolution, enables the extraction of
features from signals that combine non-stationary and
2i 1 i
t 2 g k 2t k (3) stationary characteristics [24]. Wavelet packet
k transform is used to decompose the raw data so the
in which h(k) and g(k) are the quadrature mirror filters energy of each node, at a resolution level of 4, can be
(QMF) associated with the predefined scaling function calculated. In Figure 7, the bars are the mean values of
and the mother wavelet function. the energy of each node from a set of samples and the
The wavelet packet coefficients of a function f can lines are the related variation of each node.
be computed by taking the inner product of the signal
and the particular basis function
c ij ,k f, i
j ,k t f t i
j ,k t dt
(4)
e j ,k
The wavelet packet node energy is defined as

Figure 7 Energy Distribution of Wavelet Decomposition
Components
3.2.3 Feature Selection by Fisher’s Linear
Discrimination Criterion and PCA
The features marked with stars in Figure 7 are those
features that have the 5 largest Fish linear discriminate
values [23], which means those 5 features contain the
most of the separable information for the normal and
faulty datasets. Therefore, those 5 features are selected.
The problem remains that it is difficult to decide how
many features need to be chosen for the next step:
health assessment.
The Principle Component Analysis (PCA) method
is used to projects the original feature space to a lower
dimensional feature space which contains 95% of the
variation information of the original feature space. In
this application, the Karhunen-Loève Transform (KLT)
projects the N-dimension (N=16) feature space to an
M-dimension (M=2) feature space. The training data
includes 40 normal datasets and 35 faulty datasets, and
each of them is first decomposed by WPT. Since each
dataset has 16 energy components after the
decomposition, the input matrix X is 75×16 in size.
Based on the dispersion and the magnitude of the
eigenvalues, M (M=2) of the largest eigenvalues are
preserved and the corresponding eigenvectors are
calculated. After the projection of the original feature
space onto the two dimensions along with the selected
two eigenvectors, the new feature space Y, at a size of
75×2, is obtained. The projection result is shown in
Figure 8. The circles indicate the projected normal
feature space and the crosses represent the projected
faulty feature space. A comparison of the effect of
those two feature selection methods to the results of
health assessment is given in chapter 3.3.
For the timing window signals (shown in Figure 6),
status 5 and status 13 (listed in Table 1), which
represent the time span of the tool topple down action
and the duration of the arm rotation action, are selected
as two independent features of the input to the logistic
regression algorithm. These two features are selected
because they are the most critical features to indicate
the running status of the ATC. They are combined with
the features selected by each of the methods described
above as the feature space extracted from the raw data.
Faulty
Normal
Figure 8 PCA Projection Results for Training Dataset
3.3 Health Assessment
3.3.1 Introduction to the Technical Background
Logistic Regression (LR)
Logistic regression is a function that can easily
represent the daily maintenance records as a
dichotomous/binary problem. The goal of logistic
regression is to find the best fitting model to describe
the relationship between the categorical characteristics
of a dependent variable and a set of independent
variables [25]. The logistic function is
1 eg x
Px
1 e g x 1 eg x (8)
in which the logistic or logit model is
P x
g x lo g
1 P x
(9)
1 x1 2x 2 ... k xk
, in which g(x) is a linear combination of the
independent variables x1, x2, … , xk. and , are the
parameters for the independent variables. The
maximum likelihood estimate method [8] is used to
find the parameter values that maximize the probability
of the observed data, by iterative steps.
Self-Organizing Maps (SOM)
SOM provides a way of representing
multidimensional feature space in a one or two-
dimensional space, while preserving the topological
properties of the input feature space. SOM is an
unsupervised learning neural network which can
organize itself according to the nature of the input data.
The input data vectors, which closely resemble each
other, are located next to each other on the map after
training. An n-dimensional input data space can be
denoted by
 x [ x1 , x2 ,..., xn ]T
(10)
The weight vector of each neuron j in the network
has the same dimension as the input space, and can be
represented by:
wj [ w j1 , w j 2 ,..., w jn ]T , j 1, 2,..., m
(11)
in which m is the number of neurons in the network.
The Best Machining Unit (BMU) in the SOM is the
neuron whose weight vector is the closest to the input
j xT w
vector in the input space. The inner product can
be used as an analytical measure for the matching of x
with wj. The Euclidean distance is a better and more
convenient measure criterion for the matching of x
with wj. The minimum distance defines the BMU, if
we define wc as the weight vector of the neuron that
best matches the input vector x. The measurement can
then be represented by
|| x wc || min{|| x wj ||}, j 1,2,..., m
(12)
After the BMU is identified in the iterative
training process, the weight vectors and the topological
neighbors of the BMU are updated in order to move
them closer to the input vector in the input space. The
following learning rule is applied:
wj (t 1) wj (t) (t)hj,wc (t)(x wj (t))
h j , wc
in which denotes the topological neighborhood
kernel centered on the BMU wc. A typical choice for
the kernel function is the Gaussian function
h j , wc exp( d j , wc 2 / 2
d j , wc
in which is the lateral distance between the BMU
wc and neuron j. The parameter is the “effective
width” of the topological neighborhood [26]. (t ) is
the learning rate which monotonically decreases with
the training time. In the initial phase which lasts for a
given number of steps (e.g. first 1000 steps),
(t ) starts with a value that is close to 1, and it can be
linear, exponential, or inversely proportional to t [27].
During the fine-adjustment phase, which lasts for the
rest of the training, (t ) should keep small values
over a long span of time.
3.3.2 Health Assessment by LR when Measurement
both in Normal Condition and Faulty Condition is
Available
After the feature spaces for both normal and
faulty conditions are obtained, the next step is to use
the feature space as the input of the health assessment
model to evaluate the health condition of the ATC. In
this case, both the normal and faulty data are made
available and the health assessment task is to classify
the testing data into either the normal or faulty
category. Logistic regression is a robust tool that can
easily represent the daily maintenance records as a
dichotomous problem; therefore it has been chosen as
the health assessment model.
The training dataset mentioned above is used to
train the logistic regression model. Feature space is
extracted from the raw data via WPA and the Fisher’s
linear discrimination criterion is first used as the
feature selection method. After the training, the health
assessment model is achieved:
g ( x) 7.2932 0.7298 x1
2.0944 x2 1.9451x3 1.2929 x4 (15)
1.7345 x5 2.1965 x6 3.9255 x7
281 datasets are then used for validation. Figure
9 shows the confidence value curve of the ATC. The
drop of the confidence value at cycle 250 was caused
by a drop in the air pressure at that cycle.
PCA is also used as the feature extraction method
and the same dataset is used to train the logistic
regression model. After the training, the health
assessment model is achieved:
g ( x) 7.3238 0.5764 x1
(16)
0.1012 x2 0.2591x3 1.9164 x4
The same 281 datasets are then used for
(13)
validation. Figure 10 shows the confidence value curve
of the ATC. It also shows a drop in the confidence
value at cycle 250, which was caused by a drop in the
air pressure at that cycle.
2
)
(14)
Figure 9 Health Assessment Results by LR using Fisher’s
Criterion Feature Selection Method
 Figure 10 Health Assessment Results by LR using PCA Figure 11 Noise Test Results using Fisher’s Criterion
Feature Selection Method Feature Selection Method

3.3.3 Comparison of the Two Feature Selection

Methods in Health Assessment Model
In order to test the effect of the two feature
selection methods on the health assessment model, a
noise test is designed. Random Gaussian white noise is
added to the vibration data. The noise intensity is
defined by the following signal-to-noise ratio (SNR):
A
SNR 20 log10 S (dB)
AN (17)
in which AS and AN represent the root mean square
(RMS) value of the signal, and that of the noise,
respectively.
We use 50 datasets in normal condition as the
testing data. For each of the two feature selection Figure 12 Noise Test Results using PCA Feature Selection
methods, 6 experiments are carried out for no noise, Method
SNR=25dB, SNR=20dB, SNR=15dB, SNR=10dB, and
3.3.4 Health Assessment by SOM When Only
SNR=5dB, respectively. Figure 11 and Figure 12 show
Measurement in Normal Condition is Available
the test results by using Fisher’s linear discrimination
In most scenarios, only measurement of the
criterion and PCA methods. In Figure 11, we notice
normal operating conditions is available. SOM can
that by using Fisher’s criterion feature selection
give out a health index to evaluate the health condition
method, health conditions are correctly assessed when
when only normal measurement is available. For each
SNR>5dB, while the health assessment results become
input feature vector, a BMU can be found in the SOM.
very unstable when SNR=5dB. In Figure 12, by using
The distance between the input feature vector and the
PCA feature selection method, the health conditions
weight vector of the BMU, which can be defined as the
are correctly identified in all of the SNR levels tested.
minimum quantization error (MQE), actually indicates
The results show that the health assessment model is
how far away the input feature vector deviates from the
more stable by using PCA rather than Fisher’s criterion
normal operating state. Hence, the degradation trend
when the SNR is at low level.
can be measured by the trend of the MQE. The MQE is
defined as:
MQE VF VBMU (18)
in which VF is the input feature vector and VBMU is
the weight vector of the BMU.
As the MQE increases, the extent of the
degradation becomes more severe. A threshold
MaxMQE can be set as the maximum MQE that can be
expected, and the degradation can be indicated by
converting the MQE into a confidence value (CV) , , ,...
t t 1 t 2 t q
ranging from 0 to 1 by using the following equation: again are the error terms. To
cv ( MaxMQE MQE ) / MaxMQE (19) achieve greater flexibility in the fitting of the actual
time series, it is sometimes advantageous to include
The equation indicates that the MQE increases while both autoregressive and moving average terms in the
the CV decreases. model [28]. So an ARMA (p, q) model refers to a
model with p autoregressive terms and q moving
average terms, which can be written as:
p q
Zt i Zt i t i t i
i 1 (22) i 1

Optimized parameters of an ARMA (p, q) model can

be estimated by historical data. To check the adequacy
of the ARMA (p, q) model, an F-test statistical
hypothesis test method can be applied. (Pandit and Wu
gave the details of this method in [29].)

Neural Network (NN)

Figure 13 Health Assessment Results by SOM
Data of the first 40 cycles, during which the ATC
is in normal condition, is used to train the SOM model.
After the training, the 281 cycles’ dataset is used for
validation. The corresponding MQE values are
calculated and are then converted into a CV according
to equation (19). In Figure 13, a drop of the confidence
value at cycle 250 is shown, which was caused by a
drop in the air pressure at that cycle. This result is
Neural network has its own specialty like non-
linear curve fitting and is also widely used in industrial
fields. A typical type of neural network consists of
input layer, hidden layer and output layer. In some
situations, the hidden layer contains multiple layers.
If x1, x2, …, xn are defined as input neurons and
y1, y2, …,yn are defined as hidden layer neurons, the
mapping from the input layer to the output layer can be
defined as the following equations:
n

consistent with the health assessment results achieved S j w x

ji j j
i 1 (23)
in section 3.3.2.
in which ji are the weights of connections between
3.4 Performance Prediction the input layer neurons and the hidden layer neurons;
3.4.1 Introduction to the Technical Background j is the bias of each input layer neuron. A transfer

Auto-regressive Moving Average (ARMA) function or activation function can be employed, which
An ARMA model consists of two parts, the is described as:
autoregressive (AR) part and the moving average (MA) y j f (s j) (24)
part. The AR (p) model can be represented by
p A popular representative of the transfer function
Zt i Zt i t
is the logistic function from the family of sigmoid
i 1 (20) functions, which is described as:
Z t , Z t 1 , Z t 2 ,...Z t 1
in which p
are deviations from f (s j)
(the mean about which the process varies), (25)
1 exp( s)
j

A back propagation algorithm [30] has been used

i , i 1, 2,..., p in many applications to train the neural network model.
are the parameters of the model
The weights will change according to the following
and t is the error term. The MA (q) model can be equation:
denoted by dE
q ji K (26)
d ji
Zt t i t i , i 1, 2,..., q
i 1 (21) in which ji is the weight of connections between

in which
Zt is the deviation from ,
neuron j and neuron i, E is the error function and K is a
constant proportionality. The learning algorithm will
i , i 1, 2,..., q update the weights of the network to match the outputs
are the parameters of the model and
with the desired target values in iterative steps; the
iteration stops when a certain criterion (such as
maximum iteration step, maximum iteration time,
mean square error, etc.) is met.
3.4.2 Performance Prediction by ARMA and NN
ARMA models and NN models have advantages
and disadvantages in performance prediction. ARMA
is applicable to linear time-invariant systems whose
performance features display stationary behavior, while
it is unfeasible for use in a non-linear or dynamic
process. Furthermore, since ARMA utilizes a small
amount of historical data, it cannot provide good long
term prediction. NN is an effective tool to predict
complex system behaviors which involve non-linear
behavior and unstable processes; however, currently
there is no standard method to determine the structure
of the network and sufficient computational resources
are a requirement. In this case, both ARMA models
and NN models are used to predict the degradation
trend of the ATC health condition.
As mentioned prior, confidence values can be
used as health indices of the ATC. The degradation of
the ATC can be clearly seen from the curve of the
confidence value over time. In the experiment, the air
pressure was adjusted to decrease gradually to cause
the ATC to function abnormally. WPA was used as the
signal processing tool to extract the feature space from
the raw data. PCA and SOM were then used as the
feature selection and health assessment tools,
respectively. Finally, confidence values for 221 cycles
were obtained as historical health index for
performance prediction. The first 170 cycles’ health
indices are used as the historical data and the
performance from 30 steps ahead is predicted and
compared with the real health indices calculated from
the measurement.
Performance Prediction by ARMA model
The historical confidence values from the first 170
cycles were used to obtain an appropriate ARMA
model. To determine adequate order for the ARMA
model, while achieving the smallest error at the same
time, ARMA (2, 1) is a simple model to start with. The
orders of the ARMA model were then adjusted and the
adequacy of the model judged by F-criterion, which is
a hypothesis test that measures the significance of the
improvement in modeling by using two different orders.
This is an iterative step that continues until an adequate
order for the ARMA model is achieved.
Figure 14 Performance Prediction Results by ARMA
Model
The fitted model is then used to predict the trend
of the health index, which gives an assessment of the
health condition of the ATC. It is of interest to predict
the degradation trend of the health index at the initial
defect stage in order to generate an alarm before the
defects become severe. The confidence values from the
latest 170 cycles are used to obtain the appropriate
ARMA model. The confidence values for 50
subsequent steps, starting from cycle 171, were
predicted by the fitted ARMA model. The results are
shown in Figure 14. The star points are the predicted
results. The MSE is 0.0114. The results show that the
degradation trend of the confidence value can be
predicted by using the ARMA model method.
Performance Prediction by NN Model
In order to compare the predicted results with the
ARMA model, the same historical data, which consists
of health indices from the first 170 cycles, is used for
performance prediction. The performance for the next
50 steps is predicted by using an NN model. 60
samples were selected from the historical health
indices. A 3-layer neural network, which has 105
neurons in the input layer and one neuron in the output
layer, was then trained with the historical data.
There is no specific guideline to decide the
number of neurons in the hidden layer. A trial-and-
error method was used to choose an appropriate
number for the hidden layer. Also due to the different
initial weights of the network, the final performance of
the network varies for each experiment. Therefore, the
number of neurons in the hidden layer increased from 3
to 12 in the experiment. 5 trials were carried out for
each hidden layer. The NN model which achieves the
minimum mean square error (MSE) was selected as the
final model for performance prediction. Finally, the
number of the neurons in the hidden layer was selected
as 7.

Figure 15 Performance Prediction Results by NN Model
The trained NN model was then used to predict the
confidence value of the next 50 cycles, starting from
cycle 171. The results of which are shown in Figure 15.
The star points are the predicted results. The MSE is
0.0091. Compared with the ARMA model
(MSE=0.0114), NN model achieves smaller MSE to
predict the confidence value of the future 50 cycles.
The experiment results show that both the ARMA
model and the NN model can predict the degradation
trend of the health index of the ATC. ARMA model
needs less computational resources and utilizes less
historical data, which makes it appropriate for short
term prediction instead of long term prediction. As
Figure 14 shows, the confidence value drops
significantly in the last 10 cycles, while the predicted
results of ARMA model still remain at a high level.
The NN model needs more computational resources,
though it can take more historical data into
consideration for performance prediction, which makes
it better for long term prediction. As shown in Figure
15, the NN model can achieve better prediction results
than ARMA model as it captured the more severe
degradation level of the last 10 cycles in this case.
4. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a scalable and reconfigurable
Watchdog Agent® toolbox for machine health
prognostics. The toolbox consists of algorithms for
signal processing, health assessment, performance
prediction and diagnosis, which can be reconfigured
for different machinery prognostic applications. An
industrial case illustrates how to use different
algorithms in the Watchdog Agent® toolbox for
different tasks. The experiment results also show that
the toolbox can be utilized to deal with various data
scenarios under different constraints. Furthermore, this
toolbox can be easily applied to the health monitoring
and prognostics tasks for diverse machinery
applications.
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