ARTICLE IN PRESS

Reliability Engineering and System Safety 95 (2010) 786796

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Reliability Engineering and System Safety

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ress

Development of an optimized condition-based maintenance system by data

fusion and reliability-centered maintenance
Gang Niu a,b,, Bo-Suk Yang b, Michael Pecht a,c
a
Center for Prognostics and System Health Management, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, Pukyong National University, San 100, Yongdang-dong, Nam-gu, Busan 608-739, South Korea
c
CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Consortium, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

a r t i c l e in f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Maintenance has gained in importance as a support function for ensuring equipment availability,
Received 5 August 2009 quality products, on-time deliveries, and plant safety. Cost-effectiveness and accuracy are two basic
Received in revised form criteria for good maintenance. Reducing maintenance cost can increase enterprise prot, while accurate
24 February 2010
maintenance action can sustain continuous and reliable operation of equipment. As instrumentation
Accepted 28 February 2010
and information systems become cheaper and more reliable, condition-based maintenance becomes an
Available online 10 March 2010
important tool for running a plant or a factory. This paper presents a novel condition-based
Keywords: maintenance system that uses reliability-centered maintenance mechanism to optimize maintenance
Condition-based maintenance cost, and employs data fusion strategy for improving condition monitoring, health assessment, and
Reliability-centered maintenance
prognostics. The proposed system is demonstrated by way of reasoning and case studies. The results
Data fusion
show that optimized maintenance performance can be obtained with good generality.
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Predetermined maintenance is scheduled without the

With the fast development of industry and the highly
competitive international market, especially the areas of
electronic products, nuclear power, automobile, shipbuilding,
and aircraft, cost-effective and accurate maintenance shows
increasing importance in improving plant production availability,
reduce downtime cost, and enhance operating reliability.
Maintenance can be performed in two major types: corrective
maintenance and preventive maintenance, as shown in Fig. 1.
Corrective maintenance, similar to repair work, is undertaken
after a breakdown or when obvious failure has been located.
However, corrective maintenance at its best should be utilized
only in non-critical areas where capital costs are small,
consequences of failure are slight, no safety risks are immediate,
and quick failure identication and rapid failure repair are
possible [1].
Preventive maintenance is carried out at predetermined
intervals or according to prescribed criteria and intended to
reduce the probability of failure or degradation of functioning of
an item (see SS-EN 13306). Preventive maintenance is divided
into two types: predetermined maintenance and condition-based
maintenance (CBM).
 Corresponding author. Tel.: + 851 34425938.
E-mail address: gangniu@cityu.edu.hk (G. Niu).
occurrence of any monitoring activities. The scheduling can be
based on the number of hours in use, the number of times an item
has been used, the number of kilometers the items has been used,
according to prescribed dates, etc. CBM, on the contrary, does not
use predetermined intervals and schedules. It monitors the
condition of components and systems in order to determine
a dynamic preventive schedule. A comparison of different
maintenance approaches is shown in Table 1.
The open system architecture for CBM organization
(OSA-CBM) [2] divides a standard CBM system into seven
different layers, with technical modules solution as shown in
Fig. 2. The core functions, corresponding to maintenance decisions
among the architecture, can be summarized as condition
monitoring, health assessment, and prognostics ranging from
layer 3 to layer 5. Condition monitoring involves comparing
on-line or off-line data with expected values; if necessary, it
should be able to generate alerts based on preset operational
limits. Health assessment determines if the health of the
monitored component or system has degraded, and conducts
fault diagnostics. The primary tasks of prognostics involve
calculating the future health and estimating the remaining
useful life (RUL).
In reality, however reliable and effective CBM faces some
challenges. First, initiating CBM is costly. Often the cost of
instrumentation can be quite large, especially if the goal is to
monitor an equipment that is already installed. It is therefore
important to decide whether the equipment is important enough

0951-8320/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ress.2010.02.016
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Maintenance

Corrective Preventive
Maintenance Maintenance

Condition Based Predetermined

Maintenance Maintenance

Scheduled,
Deferred Immediate continuous or Scheduled
on request

Fig. 1. Overview of different maintenance types.

Table 1
Range of maintenance approaches.

Category Maintenance approaches

Sub-category Corrective Preventive

Run-to-fail Predetermined Predictive

Fix when it breaks Scheduled maintenance Condition-based maintenance Condition-based maintenance

diagnostics prognostics
When scheduled No scheduled Maintenance based on a xed Maintenance based on current Maintenance based on forecasting
maintenance time schedule for inspect, repair, condition of remaining equipment life
and overhaul
Why scheduled N/A Intolerable failure effect and Maintenance scheduled based on Maintenance need is projected as
possibility of preventing the evidence of needs probable within mission time
failure effect through scheduled
overhaul or replacement
How scheduled N/A Based on the useful life of the Continuous collection of condition Forecasting of remaining equipment
component forecasted during monitoring data life based on actual stress loading
design and updated through
experience
Kind of prediction None None On and off-line, near real-time On and off-line, real-time trend
trend analysis analysis

to justify the investment. Second, while the goal of CBM is
accurate maintenance, it is not always easy to achieve due to
variables such as complexity of the environment, the inner
structure of equipment, obscure failure mechanisms, etc.
For cost-effective maintenance, CBM is best implemented
under an advanced maintenance management mechanism. When
the functions of the component and its importance need to be
considered at the same time, reliability-centered maintenance
(RCM) seems an appropriate choice [3]. Usually, the aim of RCM is
to maximize results with regard to system reliability or outage
cost reduction [4].
For accurate maintenance, data fusion techniques containing
signal- level fusion, feature-level fusion, and decision-level fusion
are suggested [5]. Applying fusion techniques in engineering
practice has been receiving increasing attentions in recent years.
Especially, with the rapid progress of advanced sensor and signal
processing technologies, fusing large mutual informations
becomes possible. These developments are expected to bring
about accurate CBM. A number of fusion techniques have been
identied for improving accuracy of machinery faults diagnostics,
for example, engine fault diagnostics using DempsterShafer
evidence theory [6], electric motor fault diagnostics using multi-
agent fusion [7], tank reactor diagnostics using multiple neural
networks fusion [8], and cutting tool diagnostics using fuzzy
fusion [9]. However, the applications of data fusion technology in
machinery condition monitoring and prognostics have not
received sufcient attentions yet, and relevant cases are rare.
This paper develops a novel CBM system that integrates data
fusion strategy with traditional CBM within the architecture of
RCM management. Using data fusion strategy can increase
maintenance accuracy, while RCM can scheme CBM with optimal
cost benets. The remaining parts of this paper are organized as
follows. Section 2 briey introduces background material of CBM,
RCM, and data fusion. In Section 3, the proposed system is
introduced in detail; the basic contents of each part are explained.
Section 4 describes two practical cases involving condition
monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics using data fusion
strategy to demonstrate effects of the proposed system. At last,
conclusions are summarized in Section 5.
2. Description of relevant background knowledge
This section covers a brief introduction of the relevant
knowledge used in the proposed system. The materials contain
the development of CBM, RCM, and data-fusion techniques.
2.1. Development of CBM
Traditional CBM is a maintenance program that recommends
maintenance actions based on the information collected through
condition monitoring. CBM attempts to avoid unnecessary
maintenance tasks by taking maintenance actions only when
there is evidence of abnormal behaviors of a physical asset [10].
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#7 Presentation
#6 Decision Support Layer
#5 Prognostics Layer
Comm Network
#4 Health Assessment Layer
#3 Condition Monitoring Layer
#2 Signal Processing Layer
Data Acquisition Layer
#1 Sensor Module
Transducer Layer
Fig. 2. Open system architecture for condition-based maintenance (OSA-CBM).
The previous CBM carries out maintenance task that focuses only
on condition monitoring and diagnostics. With increasing
requirement in predicting future degradation trend of equipment
performance, OSA extends CBM functions and adds a prognostic
layer.
In recent years, a development of CBM called CBM plus
(CBM+ ) is put forward, which is the application and integration
of appropriate process, technologies, and knowledge-based
capabilities to improve reliability and maintenance effectiveness
[11]. CBM+ has a broad scope. It is built on the concept of CBM,
but is optimized by reliability analysis. The original policy for
CBM+ was released in November 2002 by the Deputy under
Secretary of Defense (DoD) and became popular since 2006.
The plus designation represents the extension of CBM with
other encompassed technologies, processes, and procedures that
enable improved maintenance and logistics practices. CBM+ is
not a process in itself. It is a comprehensive strategy to select,
integrate, and focus a number of process improvement capabil-
ities, thereby enabling maintenance managers and their custo-
mers to attain the desired levels of system and equipment
readiness in the most cost-effective manner. At its core, CBM+ is
maintenance performed on evidence of need provided by RCM
analysis and other enabling processes and technologies.
2.2. RCM
RCM was developed in 1970s by the Air Transport Association
(ATA), the Aerospace Manufacturers Associates (AMA), and the
US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). RCM is an industrial
improvement approach focused on identifying and establishing
the operational, maintenance, and capital improvement policies
that will manage the risks of equipment failure most effectively. It
is an engineering framework that enables the denition of a
complete maintenance regime.
Presentation layer is the man/machine interface. May query all
other layers.
Decision support utilizes spares, logistics, manning etc. to
assemble maintenance options.
Prognostics considers health assessment, employment
schedule, and models/reasoners that are able to predict future
health with certainty levels and error bounds.
Health Assessment is the lowest level of goal directed
behavior. Uses historical and CM values to determine current
health. Multi-site condition monitor inputs.
Condition Monitoring gathers SP data and compares to
specific predefined features. Highest physical site specific
application.
Signal Processing provides low-level computation on sensor
data.
Data Acquisition conversion/ formatting of analog output
from transducer to digital word. May incorporate meta-data
Transducer converts some stimuli to electrical signal for entry
into system.
According to [12], if RCM is correctly applied, it can reduce the
amount of routine maintenance work by 4070%. The benets of
RCM can usually be traced back to two broad categories: risk
reductions and cost savings [13].
To compare CBM, CBM +, and RCM, on one hand, CBM is a
traditional maintenance strategy or technology, while CBM+
expands the capability and reliability of CBM; CBM+ focuses on
providing the support net required for performing condition
based maintenance. The RCM uses CBM as one primary failure
management strategy [11]. This relationship is shown graphically
in Fig. 3.
2.3. Data fusion
Data fusion, which ts many examples in engineering, is
identied as the process of combining data and knowledge
from different sources with the aim of maximizing the useful
information content, for improved reliability or discriminant
capability, whilst minimizing the quantity of data ultimately
retained. Based on the different phases, general data fusion
structure can be divided into three types: signal-level (or
data-level), feature-level, and decision-level, as referred in [5].
Signal-level fusion: In this fusion level, all sensor raw data from
a measured object are combined directly and a feature vector is
then extracted from the fused data. At this stage, a pattern
recognition process is performed as shown in Fig. 4(a). Fusion of
data at this level contains the maximum information and can give
good results. However, sensors used in this level must
be commensurate. This means the measurement has to be the
same or of similar physical quantities or phenomena such as
vibration signals. As a consequence, the signal-level application is
limited in the real environment, where there are many physical
quantities to be measured for synthesis analysis.
Feature-level fusion: In this level, features are extracted from
each sensor according to the type of raw data. Then, these non-
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Fig. 3. RCM/CBM/CBM+ relationship.

Data source 1 Data source 2 ... Data source n Data source 1 Data source 2 ... Data source n

Feature Feature Feature Feature

extraction extraction extraction extraction

Fusion Fusion

Recognition
Recognition

Data source 1 Data source 2 ... Data source n

Feature Feature Feature

extraction extraction extraction

Recognition Recognition Recognition

Fusion

Fig. 4. Division of data fusion levels: (a) signallevel(datalevel)fusion; (b) featurelevel(datalevel)fusion and (c) decisionlevel(datalevel)fusion.

commensurate sensor informations are combined at the phase of
the feature level. All feature vectors are combined in turn to a
bigger single feature vector, which is then used in a special
classication model for decision making as shown in Fig. 4(b). The
function of feature vector normalization must still be performed
prior to linking the feature vectors from individual sensors
to a single larger feature vector in order to limit them to a same
value range.
Decision-level fusion: In this structure, the processes of
feature extraction and pattern recognition are employed
for single-source data obtained from each sensor. Then
the generated decision vectors are fused using decision-level
fusion techniques such as Bayesian method, behavior
knowledge space (BKS), DempsterShafer theory, etc. as shown
in Fig. 4(c).
3. Proposed CBM system based on RCM and data fusion
In this section, a new CBM system is proposed and is shown in
Fig. 5. This system is based on OSA-CBM architecture and is
integrated with RCM and data fusion strategy. RCM is employed
in order to achieve cost-effective maintenance, while data fusion
technology is used for monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics in
order to improve maintenance accuracy. The structure of the
system is described as follows.
3.1. Cost-effective maintenance by integrating CBM and RCM
One of the main purposes of maintenance is cost saving, which
shows increasing importance in both civil industry and military
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RCM Corrective
Maintenance

Objection identification Predetermined

Maintenance

Determine ways of CBM

function failures
Sensor Module
Determine failures
models Data Fusion
Signal Processing
Signal-level
Assessing the effects of Condition Monitoring Fusion
failures
Feature-level
Identifications of Health Assessment
Fusion
maintenance tasks
Prognostics Decision-level
Identification of Fusion
maintenance interval
Decision Support
Program evaluation
& cost analysis Presentation

Fig. 5. Flowchart of proposed CBM system.

industry, where complex equipment maintenance costs huge

Condition Monitoring
amounts of money. RCM can effectively organize CBM in
optimizing the solution to reach the aim.
Subjective Objective
3.1.1. Structured steps of applying RCM
The general steps for applying the RCM method [12] can be Off-line On-line
summarized as follows.
Dene system functions, performance standards, and system Perodic Continuous
boundary: A function denition is not complete unless it species
the level of performance desired by the user. Performance can be Static warning Static warning
dened in two ways: limit limit

 Desired performance, i.e. what the user wants the asset to do;
 Built-in capability, i.e. what it can do.
Determine the ways in which the system functions may fail: A
failure is an unsatisfactory condition. A functional failure is
dened as the inability of any asset to fulll a function in
accordance with a standard of performance. All the functional
failures associated with each function should be recorded.
Determine the signicant failure modes: A failure mode is the
effect by which a failure is observed to occur [14]. The best way to
show the connection and the distinction between functional
failures and the events that could cause them is to list the
functional failures rst and then record the failure modes that
could cause each functional failure.
Assess the effects and consequences of the failures: A failure effect
is what happens when a failure mode occurs. Failure
consequences are the ways of failures that matter. The
consequences of failures are more important than their technical
characteristics. To identify the failure modes and their failure
effects, a failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is usually
performed. Often FMEA becomes a failure mode effect and
criticality analysis (FMECA), if criticalities or priorities are
assigned to the failure mode effects [15].
Identify maintenance tasks by means of a decision-logic scheme:
The decision-logic scheme helps in evaluating the maintenance
requirements for each signicant item in terms of failure
consequences. It selects only those tasks that will satisfy these
requirements. For items where no applicable and effective task
Autonomous
Manual analysis
analysis
Fig. 6. Division of condition monitoring.
can be found, re-design is recommended if safety is involved.
Otherwise, there should be no scheduled maintenance.
Identify maintenance tasks interval: RCM focuses only on what
tasks should be executed and why. The time when the tasks
should be executed is derived from separate analyses that must
consider and utilize combinations of company and industry
experience to establish initial task frequencies. Based on identi-
cations in the above steps, different types of maintenance tasks
and intervals can be selected.
 Corrective maintenance and critical functions of failures need
performance of repair immediately, which is a broken-then-x
strategy. However, for failures that are of little or no
consequence for comprehensive system function, the main-
tenance can be deferred until a suitable time.
 Predetermined maintenance is best suited to an item that has
visible age or wear-out characteristic and one where maintenance
tasks can be made at a time that is certain to prevent a failure from
occurring [16]. The scheduling can be based on the number of
hours in use, the number of times it has been used, etc.
 For CBM, the core part is condition monitoring, which can be
performed using various approaches and utilizing different
levels of technology [10], as seen in Fig. 6. In on-line
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(or real-time) monitoring, one continuously monitors a

Data Acquisition
machine and triggers a warning alarm whenever something
wrong is detected. But two limitations of on-line monitoring
are: (i) it is often expensive and (ii) to continuously monitor Signal Preprocessing
raw signals with noise produces inaccurate diagnostics
information. In comparison, periodic monitoring is used due Feature Extraction
to its low cost and providing more accurate diagnostics using
ltered and/or processed data. But, the risk of using periodic
monitoring is the possibility of missing some failure events Feature Selection
that occur between successive inspections [17]. Recognition Trend
Fusion feature feature Fusion
Audit, implement, and feedback: After the review has been Diagnostics Monitoring
completed for each asset by the RCM team, senior managers with
overall responsibility for the plants equipment must evaluate the Feature-level fusion Feature-level fusion
decision made by the team, a procedure called auditing. After
each review is approved, the recommendations are implemented Condition monitoring
by incorporating maintenance. Diagnostic
Prognostic
3.1.2. Relationship between CBM and RCM
The RCM analytical approach assists the maintenance manager in Decision
identifying potential failures and supporting the selection of viable Prediction
courses of action. RCM tools help dene the optimal failure
management strategies. CBM is not a process in itself. It is a Decision-level fusion Prediction fusion
comprehensive strategy to select, integrate, and focus a number of
process improvement capabilities, thereby enabling maintenance
Fusion
managers and their customers to attain the desired levels of system Prognostics
Maintenance Actions
and equipment readiness in the most cost-effective manner. CBM
strategy includes a number of capabilities and initiatives, some Fig. 7. Flowchart of CBM integrating data fusion.
procedural and some technical, that can enhance the basic RCM
tasks. In this way, CBM enables a more effective RCM analysis.
If the RCM analysis suggests revision of maintenance tasks, Diagnostic output
then the maintenance manager should accomplish an assessment
of how CBM capabilities may be applied to support the revised
maintenance task procedures. Often, the revised tasks require Decision-level fusion
fundamental changes to the maintenance strategy such as
transition from time cycle repair intervals to CBM. ...
Classifier 1 Classifier 2 Classifier N

3.2. Accurate maintenance by integrating CBM and data fusion

techniques Feature-level fusion

In industry, accurate maintenance is also imperative, ...

Feature extraction 1 Feature extraction 2 Feature extraction N
especially for core functional components of machinery. Integra-
tion of CBM and data fusion techniques is expected to generate
accurate maintenance decisions. Signal input

3.2.1. Proposed CBM system based on data fusion
In this subsection, an enhanced CBM system based on data
fusion is introduced. The suggested owchart is shown in Fig. 7.
First, raw signals are collected and signal preprocessing is
conducted. Then appropriate features are calculated and extracted
that give information about the state of the running machine.
Next, the features that can recognize different faults clearly are
selected for diagnostic analysis, while those features indicating
degradation trend of equipment health are chosen for monitoring
and prognostic tasks in order to predict the remaining useful life
(RUL). Then the fusion strategy is employed in the following two
subsystems: one is fusion fault diagnostics subsystem, the other is
fusion monitoring and prognostics subsystem.
As far as health degradation is concerned, each degradation
indicator has its own merits and shortcomings and is effective
only for certain failures at certain stages. Therefore, fusing
multiple degradation indicators would potentially provide an
accurate and reliable way to monitor degradation. When the
monitored index exceeds a predetermined amount, the processes
of diagnostics and prognostics are trigged.
Fig. 8. Flowchart of fusion diagnostics subsystem.
In order to get accurate diagnostics result, either the feature-
level or decision-level fusion strategy can be used. Moreover, in
order to get a near-ideal prediction of RUL with its uncertainty
interval, data fusion at feature level also can be employed. Finally,
optimal maintenance actions are established based on the results
of monitoring, diagnostics, and prognostics. A description of these
two fusion subsystems is given below.
3.2.2. Fusion diagnostics subsystem
The task of the classier (diagnostics) component of a full
system is to use the feature vector provided by the feature
extractor to assign the object to a category (fault) [18]. The
machine fault diagnostics process takes a segment of fault signals
and tells which fault it represents.
In the proposed fusion diagnostics subsystem shown in Fig. 8,
signals are collected and feature extraction is performed. The
extracted features should be the ones that can separate different
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faults clearly. Then if needed, these generated features can be
combined in some method such as a neural network or clustering
at feature level. Next several classiers are utilized to classify the
calculated features or fused features; the diagnostics decisions
from all classiers are grouped as a decision vector, and sent into
a specic decision-level fusion algorithm to get a more reliable
diagnostic decision.
3.2.3. Fusion monitoring and prognostics subsystem
There has been much progress in the technology of CBM in
recent years. However, many fundamental issues still remain in
condition monitoring and prognostics [19]:
 Indicators, used for accurate condition monitoring and
prognostics, need to be developed.
 Currently, methods are generally focused on solving the failure
prediction problems. Tools for system performance assessment
and degradation prediction have not been well addressed.
 Most of the developed prognostics approaches are applied on
specic equipments. A generic prognostics system is needed.
In this subsection, a data fusion based condition monitoring and
prognostics subsystem is proposed for solving the above issues.
The owchart of the proposed subsystem is shown in Fig. 9.
Condition monitoring is the process of monitoring a condition
parameter of machinery, such that a signicant change is
indicative of a developing failure. It is a major component of
CBM. The use of conditional monitoring allows maintenance to be
scheduled or other actions to be taken to avoid the consequences
of failure before the failure occurs. Each monitoring indicator has
its own merits and shortcomings and is effective only for certain
failures at certain stages. Therefore, fusing mutual indicator
informations is expected to provide accurate indication for
degradation monitoring.
In this proposed subsystem, signals of multi-sensors attached
on operating machine are collected and features exhibiting
a degradation trend are extracted. Then those features are
normalized and grouped as an input set for a feature-level fusion
Data acquisition On-line condition
monitoring module
Feature extraction
Features normalization
Feature-level fusion
De-noising Condition monitoring
No
Alarm setting Trigger ?
Fig. 9. Flowchart of fusion monitoring and prognostics subsystem.
algorithm. Next, the process of de-noising is considered for
ltering process noise from feature extraction and fusion. After
the de-noised process, a clear tracking trend for the operating
state can be determined. Finally, condition monitoring can be
carried out and a comparison is exerted continuously between the
alarm threshold and each new indication value. When the
monitoring curve crosses through the threshold, a data-driven
prognostics module is triggered.
Prognostics is the process of predicting the future reliability of
a product by assessing the extent of deviation or degradation of
the product from its expected normal operating conditions [14].
Approaches for prognostic reasoning can be classied into four
categories [20]:
 physical models;
 rule-based or case-based systems;
 model-driven statistical learning methods;
 data-driven statistical learning models.
Considering the generality of analysis methods and
convenience of monitoring strategy, the data-driven model is
used in this subsystem. The degradation trend of a machines
performance is often reected in a nonlinear or chaotic char-
acteristic. For this, state space reconstruction is the rst process
for time-series prediction. The reconstruction parameters, delay
time and embedding dimension, need to be determined appro-
priately. Then the performance degradation prediction is con-
ducted, including not only the degradation trend prediction (point
estimate) but also the evaluation of uncertainty bounds (interval
estimate). Next, the prediction results of several nonlinear
regression algorithms are fused to improve prediction accuracy.
Finally, prognostics assessment (PA) is carried out. The core of PA
is estimating the remaining useful lifetime of a failing component
or system and assigning uncertainty bounds to the degradation
trend that will provide maintainers with the earliest and the latest
(with increasing risk) time to perform maintenance and the
associated risk factor when maintenance action is delayed.
Data-driven
prognosis module
Prognosis assessment
(RUL, confidence interval)
Prediction fusion
Degradation prediction
Yes
Time-series reconstruction
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4. Case studies of the proposed CBM integrating data fusion
In this section, two experiments based on the proposed system
are described. Section 4.1 introduces an example that uses the
decision-level fusion for an induction motor fault diagnostics.
Section 4.2 describes a case of feature-level fusion for a
compressor condition monitoring and prognostics.
4.1. Fusion fault diagnostics
In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed
fusion fault diagnostics subsystem in real-world operating
conditions, an experiment was carried out for an induction motor
system of elevator as shown in Fig. 10. The test objects are ten
15 kW, 50 Hz, and 4-pole induction motors that were used in
elevators. All these motors were set to operate at full-load
conditions. One of them is normal (healthy), which is used as a
benchmark for comparing with faulty motors. The others are
faulty motors with rotor unbalance, stator eccentricity, rotor
eccentricity, broken rotor bar, bearing housing looseness, bearing
inner race looseness, ball fault, and bearing outer race fault and
inner race fault.
The AC current probes were used to measure stator current
signal. The maximum frequency of sampling signals was 3 kHz
and the number of sampled data was 16,384. Sampling time was
2.133 s and hanning window was chosen for ltering. Totally, 200
samples were collected with 20 samples for each condition.
Among them, 100 samples were divided for training classiers,
another 50 samples for training fusion algorithms, and the
remaining 50 samples for testing. Then, the recognizing features
were extracted. Statistical parameters, calculated in the time
domain, frequency domain, and auto-regression, were used to
determine average properties of acquired data [21], and are
shown in Table 2.
Based on the calculated features, a process of classication was
conducted using the following four classiers: support vector
machine (SVM), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), random
forests algorithm (RFA), and adaptive resonance theory-Kohonen
neural network (ART-KNN) [22]. Finally, the decision vectors of
the multi-classiers were fused by Bayesian belief method. A
comparison of diagnostics accuracy between single-classier and
multi-classier fusions is listed in Table 3. The experimental
results show that RFA is the best individual classier;
nevertheless, it still gives bad diagnosis accuracy for faults like
bearing housing looseness (40%), outer race fault (40%), and ball
fault (40%). ART-KNN is the worst, but generated better diagnosis
accuracy for housing looseness fault (80%). In comparison,
multi-classier fusion strategy remarkably improved the faults
diagnosis accuracy. Total fusion accuracy utilizing Bayesian belief
method reached 94%, but only 76% from RFA, the best individual
classier in this experiment.
4.2. Fusion condition monitoring and prognostics
In this experiment, the object is a low methane compressor
shown in Fig. 11. It is an important machine, used in a petrochemical
plant for maintaining normal production ow. Therefore, its long-
term health monitoring and prediction is imperative.

Table 3
Comparison of accuracy rates (%) between individual and fused classiers.

Faulty type Classier Decision fusion

SVM LDA RFA ART-KNN

Broken rotor bar 40 60 80 60 100

Ball fault 80 40 40 20 80
Inner race fault 100 100 100 20 100
Outer race fault 20 20 40 0 60
Bearing housing looseness 0 60 40 80 100
Inner race looseness 100 80 100 80 100
Rotor unbalance 100 60 100 100 100
Rotor eccentricity 100 100 80 100 100
Stator eccentricity 100 100 80 40 100
Normal condition 100 100 100 100 100

Total 74 72 76 60 94
Fig. 10. Experiment apparatus of induction motor in elevator system.

Table 2
Description of values of features of signals.

Signals Position Values of features of signals

Time domain Frequency domain Auto-regression

Vibration Vertical  Mean  Root mean square frequency  AR coefcients (a1a8)

Horizontal  RMS  Frequency center
Axial  Shape factor  Root variance frequency
 Skewness
Current Phase A  Kurtosis
 Crest factor
 Entropy error
 Entropy estimation
 Histogram lower
 Histogram upper
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neural network is employed to fuse the input set into a single

CMS Off-line monitoring (100mV/g acceleration)
indicator output, minimum quantization error (MQE) [23], as
shown in Fig. 13. Comparing with the plots of RMS and envelope
Male rotor vertical Male rotor horizontal features, it can be seen that MQE indicator maintains a more
Motor DE/NDE horizontal
Suction vertical,
steady state than the envelop curve, while it enhances a
horizontal, axial Male rotor axial Motor DE/NDE vertical degradation trend than the RMS curve, which is very suitable
Motor DE/NDE axial for anomaly detection and performance degradation prediction.
Furthermore, de-noising was conducted in order to reduce the
Symptom sensing
inuence from white noise that was generated in the processes of
feature extraction and fusion. This process is useful in following
trend analysis. Here, smoothing and wavelet de-noising were
applied. The result shows a smooth and clear ascending trend in
Fig. 14.
CMS On-line monitoring (100mV/g acceleration)
At time point 277, the monitoring curve crosses through the
(Only horizontal)
preset alarm threshold. This action triggers a prognostic module
Fig. 11. Low methane compressor: wet screw type.
and initializes performance degradation. Predicting RUL and its
uncertainty interval should be carried out.

1.4 4.2.2. Degradation prediction and prognostics assessment (PA)

The tasks of data-driven prognostic are predicting degradation
1.2
trend of the machine health, assessing the RUL, and its
1 uncertainty interval. For these purposes, two nonlinear regression
Acceleration (g)

0.8
models, DempsterShafer regression (DSR) and least square-
support vector machine (LS-SVM), were employed.
0.6 First, the step of time-series reconstruction is exerted using the
0.4 method of delays (MOD) [24] for the requirement of nonlinear
time-series prediction. In this experiment, reconstruction para-
0.2 meters delay time and embedding dimension were selected by
0 the C-C method [25] and false nearest neighbor method [26],
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 respectively. Next, time-series prediction was performed using
Time (step) DSR and LS-SVM models by a strategy of iterated multi-step
ahead. According to the alarming time, we divided the previous
3
277 samples for training models and the remaining 123 samples
2.5
0.8
Envelope value

1.5 0.6

1
MQE

0.4
0.5

0 0.2
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Time (step)
0
Fig. 12. Original time-series RMS and envelope plot. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Time (step)
The vibration signals of the methane compressor were
Fig. 13. SOM fusion indicator plot.
recorded continuously for 100 days. The collected time-series
samples were used for analysis, prediction and validation. The
sampling period of the raw signals was 6 h, recorded four samples
per day. Totally, 400 time-series samples were obtained. 0.25
Actual curve
Alarm triggered point
4.2.1. Condition monitoring 0.2
Fusion index (MQE)

Monitoring Prognosis
The vibration features, RMS and envelope, are extracted from Trip set value
the collected raw signals. Both of the two indicators are popular in 0.15
condition monitoring of rotating machinery. Fig. 12 shows the
RMS and envelope plot of peak acceleration data. It can be seen 0.1
that the collected time-series dataset presents a process of
performance degradation from healthy to abnormal operating 0.05
Alarm set value and its bias
sate. Both of the indicators show an ascending trend.
After extracting features of vibration signals, a process of 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
normalization is conducted in order to transform the feature Time (step)
values into a common scale and group those as an input set for the
feature-level fusion. Next, a self-organizing map (SOM)-based Fig. 14. Condition monitoring and alarming.
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0.25 0.25
Actual curve Actual curve
Prediction point estimate Fused prediction point estimate
0.2 0.2

Fusion index (MQE)

Fusion index (MQE)

Fused prediction interval estimate 17 steps

Prediction interval estimate
33 steps

0.15 0.15

0.1 0.1

0.05 0.05

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Time (step) Time (step)

Fig. 15. Degradation prediction using DSR model. Fig. 17. Degradation prediction fusing DSR and LS-SVM (linear weight).

5. Conclusions
0.25
Actual curve
Prediction point estimate This paper presents an advanced CBM system that integrates
0.2
Fusion index (MQE)

Prediction interval estimate RCM for management of maintenance process, and emphasizes
data fusion strategy for improvement of maintenance accuracy.
0.15
The advantages of the proposed system can be summarized as
follows.
0.1

0.05
0
0 50 100 150 200
Time (step)
Fig. 16. Degradation prediction using LS-SVM model.
for validating the degradation prediction. The predicted
degradation curve and its uncertainty interval are shown in
Fig. 15 for DSR model and in Fig. 16 for LS-SVM model.
The predicted results are compared between the two models in
terms of prediction point estimate and prediction interval
estimate.
Accuracy: prediction point estimate (PP). Comparing PP
estimates in Figs. 15 and 16, the root mean squared error (RMSE)
of PP estimate for LS-SVM is 0.019, less than 0.063 for DSR.
Precision: prediction interval estimate (PI). Comparing PI
estimates in Figs. 15 and 16, the narrowness of PI estimate for
LS-SVM is 0.105, less than 0.112 for DSR.
After obtaining the prediction results from DSR and LS-SVM,
we notice the potential improvements of accuracy and precision
by fusing the predicted results. Fusion in this process is already
not suitable for using complex methods, because the nal fused
results should be in accordance with alarm setting and trip setting
on unit and scale. Hence, linear weight fusion is employed to
combine predicted results of the two models. The weights of the
DSR and LS-SVM are set up as 0.15 and 0.85, respectively,
considering the previous compared results. The better one
deserves a higher weight. The nal fused results are shown in
Fig. 17. It can be seen that the PP estimate is closer to the actual
trend curve with RMSE of 0.013. The fused PP is improved when
compared with single best LS-SVM, with a proper positive
upper bound.
According to the fused prediction results, the PP estimate
crosses through the predetermined trip threshold at point 310,
and the upper bound crosses through the threshold at point 294.
Finally, the predicted RUL is 33 steps (198 h), with maximum
uncertain upper bound of 17 steps (102 h). Compared with
the actual RUL with 33 steps (198 h), the results give a positive
prediction, with appropriate time for indicating repair to
the machine.
 Cost-effectiveness: the proposed system is constructed under
the architecture of RCM, which assists the maintenance
manager in identifying vital components, potential failures,
250 300 350 400 and proper maintenance tasks and interval. It supports an
adaptive and dynamic maintenance strategy so that cost-
effectiveness can be reached.
 Accuracy: use of data-fusion strategy improves the accuracy of
the CBM tool in the process of condition monitoring,
diagnostics, and prognostics. Moreover, obtaining accurate
maintenance information helps a manager make right
maintenance decisions and sustain a continuous and reliable
work-ow of equipment.
 Generality: the proposed maintenance system is constructed
based on OSA-CBM architecture, which uses RCM management
mechanism in maintenance process, and the standard data
fusion structures in accuracy improvement. Therefore, general
maintenance techniques can be easily added to this system.
The proposed system was demonstrated by reasoning and case
studies. The results show that optimized maintenance perfor-
mance can be obtained. In future, multi-criteria approach will be
developed. Appropriate decision models will be researched in
order to tackle the existing conict between cost and downtime of
an inspection policy taking into account the decision makers
preference structures.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Centre for Prognostics and
System Health Management at, City University of Hong Kong, and
partially supported by the Brain Korea 21 Project, Pukyong
National University in 2009.
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