An autoencoder with adaptive transfer learning for intelligent fault diagnosis of rotating machinery

Under variable working conditions, a problem arises, which is that it is difficult to obtain enough labeled data; to address this problem, an adaptive transfer autoencoder (ATAE) is established to diagnose faults in rotating machinery. First, a data adaptation module, which calculates the maximum mean discrepancy for the network hidden-layer data in reproducing kernel Hilbert space, is introduced to the autoencoder network, thus making the classification model operate under variable working conditions. Variation particle-swarm optimization is then invoked to optimize the data adaptation parameters. Finally, the k-nearest neighbors algorithm, as the classification layer of the network, identifies the state of health of the rotating machinery. The capabilities of the intelligent fault-diagnosis network are verified using vibration signals from a bearing test rig and a gearbox test rig. The experimental results suggest that, compared with state-of-the-art diagnosis methods, the proposed ATAE network can significantly boost diagnostic performance in the absence of target vibration signal labels.