Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing

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

The design of a new sparsogram for fast bearing fault

diagnosis: Part 1 of the two related manuscripts that have
a joint title as “Two automatic vibration-based fault diagnostic
methods using the novel sparsity measurement – Parts 1 and 2”
Peter W. Tse n, Dong Wang
The Smart Engineering Asset Management Laboratory (SEAM) and the Croucher Optical Non-destructive Testing and Quality Inspection
Laboratory (CNDT), Department of Systems Engineering & Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Hong
Kong, China

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: Rolling element bearings are widely used in rotating machines. An early warning of
Received 8 February 2012 bearing faults helps to prevent machinery breakdown and economic loss. Vibration-based
Received in revised form envelope analysis has been proven to be one of the most effective methods for bearing
24 May 2013
fault diagnosis. The core of an envelope analysis is to find a resonant frequency band for a
Accepted 29 May 2013
Available online 5 July 2013
band-pass filtering for the enhancement of weak bearing fault signals. A new concept
called a sparsogram is proposed in Part 1 paper. The aim of the sparsogram is to quickly
Keywords: determine the resonant frequency bands. The sparsogram is constructed using
Wavelet packet decomposition the sparsity measurements of the power spectra from the envelopes of wavelet packet
Resonant frequency band
coefficients at different wavelet packet decomposition depths. The optimal wavelet packet
Bearing fault diagnosis
node can be selected by visually inspecting the largest sparsity value of the wavelet
Sparsogram
Sparsity measurement packet coefficients obtained from all wavelet packet nodes. Then, the wavelet packet
coefficients extracted from the selected wavelet packet node is demodulated for envelope
analysis. Several case studies including a simulated bearing fault signal mixed with heavy
noise and real bearing fault signals collected from a rotary motor were used to validate the
sparsogram. The results show that the sparsogram effectively locates the resonant
frequency bands, where the bearing fault signature has been magnified in these bands.
Several comparison studies with three popular wavelet packet decomposition based
methods were conducted to show the superior capability of sparsogram in bearing fault
diagnosis.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Rolling element bearings are widely used to support rotating components. Bearing failures may cause machinery
breakdown and economic loss. Consequently, it is crucial to identify bearing faults at their early developing stages to
prevent severe machinery failures. Because vibration signals are easily collected by attached transducers, vibration signal-
based analysis is the dominant way to identify machine faults. A rolling element bearing usually consists of an inner race, an

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 92660207; fax: +852 34420173.
E-mail addresses: meptse@cityu.edu.hk, mepwtse@cityu.edu.hk (P.W. Tse), dongwang4-c@my.cityu.edu.hk (D. Wang).

0888-3270/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ymssp.2013.05.024
500 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

outer race, rollers and a cage. Once localized faults develop on the surface of any of these components, the strikes of rollers
on the fault surfaces excite the resonant frequencies of structures between the bearing and the transducers, triggering the
modulation phenomenon. It has been found that envelope signals obtained by amplitude demodulation contain many more
bearing fault-related signatures than the original signals. The core of amplitude demodulation is the appropriate selection of
the resonant frequency band. Many previous studies have been conducted to solve the resonant frequency band selection
problem [1,2].
In recent years, Antoni and Randall [3] showed that spectral kurtosis was a solution for designing an optimal band-pass
filter that maximized the signal to noise ratio. It should be noted that the performance of short-time Fourier transform
(STFT) depends on the selections of different window lengths. Hence, a new concept called a kurtogram [3] was developed
by considering a series of different window lengths. However, the original kurtogram was time-consuming and not suitable
for on-line health monitoring. To overcome the disadvantage of a long computing time, the 1/3-binary tree fast kurtogram
estimator was devised [4]. This estimator made on-line condition monitoring a reality. Barszcz and Jabłoński [5] found that
the kurtosis of the envelope spectrum amplitudes of demodulated signals was more effective than the kurtosis of the
filtered temporal signal when the signal to noise ratio was low. Therefore, they proposed the concept of a protrugram to
select the optimal frequency band for amplitude demodulation.
From the previous studies [5–7], it is found that the bearing fault characteristic frequency and its harmonics shown in the
envelope spectrum can be regarded as a few spikes with large amplitudes that reflect bearing fault signatures. In this paper,
we define these spikes in the envelope spectrum as the sparse representation of a bearing fault signal in a frequency
domain. The envelope spectrum analysis was applied to the signals captured from a normal bearing and a bearing suffered
from an outer race fault. The results are shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b) for the purpose to verify the aforementioned definition.
From the envelope spectrum as shown in Fig. 1(b), the signal, which was generated by the bearing suffered from an outer
race defect, contains a few outstanding amplitudes at the bearing outer race fault characteristic frequency and its harmonics.
This result proves that the definition of the sparse representation is useful to indicate that a bearing is defective. Therefore, a
sparsity measurement may be a potential approach for quantifying the amplitudes of bearing fault characteristic frequency
and its harmonics in an envelope spectrum.
Sparsity measurement is frequently used in ultrasonic non-destructive testing to improve the performance of ultrasonic
signal processing algorithms. An ultrasonic echo signal is a convolution between an impulse response and a series of
reflection sequences (spikes). After deconvolution, a series of reflection sequences are useful for accurately estimating the
locations of media discontinuations. These reflection sequences can be seen as the sparse representation of the original
ultrasonic echo signal. Based on sparsity measurement, Liang et al. [8] constructed a non-linear function to improve the
convergence of a blind deconvolution algorithm. Further, they [9] added sparsity measurement to the Moore-penrose
inverse to obtain sparse ultrasonic reflection sequences. Chen et al. [10] used the same sparsity measurement to pick the
most useful intrinsic mode functions decomposed by empirical mode decomposition for magnetic flux leakage signal-based

x 104
4

3
Amplitude

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)

x 104 Sparse
4
representation
Bearingfault characterisic
3
frequency and its harmonics
Amplitude

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 1. The envelope spectra of (a) the signal from a normal bearing and (b) the signal from the bearing with an outer race defect.
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 501

non-destructive inspection. The sparsity measurement used in non-destructive testing [8–10] was employed in this paper to
quantify bearing characteristic frequencies in an envelope spectrum.
Before sparsity measurement is performed on an envelope spectrum, a band-pass filter can be used to retain one of the
resonant frequency bands for enhancing the signal to noise ratio of a weak bearing fault signal. Compared with discrete
wavelet transform [11] and continuous wavelet transform [12], binary wavelet packet transform (WPT) is used to
decompose an original signal into some wavelet packet coefficients, which have orthogonal sub-frequency bands with an
equal bandwidth at a wavelet packet decomposition depth. Moreover, the high computing efficiency and sufficient time–
frequency resolution of binary WPT is more attractive. WPT as a precise filter bank has been demonstrated to be an effective
way to extract bearing fault signatures [13–17]. As a result, a new concept called a sparsogram is proposed in Part 1 paper for
the fast selection of a resonant frequency band that contains many bearing fault signatures. Additionally, the sparsogram has
ability to give initial center frequencies and bandwidths for the optimization of a complex Morlet wavelet filter which have
been developed in Part 2 paper.
The rest of Part 1 paper is organized as follow. Section 2 introduces binary WPT and proposes the new sparsogram and its
corresponding bearing fault diagnosis method. In Section 3, simulated and real bearing fault signals are used to validate the
effectiveness of the proposed method. Comparison studies with three binary WPT based popular methods are conducted.
Section 4 concludes Part 1 paper.

2. Binary WPT and the proposed fast detection method for bearing fault diagnosis

2.1. The basic theory of binary WPT [18]

A binary WPT that has good local properties in both time and frequency spaces is an extension of discrete wavelet
transform. The binary WPT uses more filters than the discrete wavelet transform to analyze a signal. It means that the WPT
decomposes the high frequency bands that are not split by discrete wavelet transform. Assume a space W pj and its
orthonormal basis ψ pj ðt−2j nÞn∈Z , where j is the wavelet packet decomposition depth and p is the pth wavelet packet basis.
The above orthogonal basis of the space at wavelet packet node (j, p) can be decomposed into two new orthogonal bases as
follow:
þ∞
ψ 2p
jþ1 ðtÞ ¼ ∑ hðnÞψ pj ðt−2j nÞ; ð1Þ
n ¼ −∞

þ∞
ψ 2pþ1
jþ1 ðtÞ ¼ ∑ gðnÞψ pj ðt−2j nÞ; ð2Þ
n ¼ −∞

hðnÞ ¼ 〈ψ 2p p j
jþ1 ðuÞ; ψ j ðt−2 nÞ〉; ð3Þ

gðnÞ ¼ 〈ψ 2pþ1 p j
jþ1 ðuÞ; ψ j ðt−2 nÞ〉: ð4Þ

here, hðnÞ and gðnÞ are a pair of conjugate mirror filters and 〈; 〉 is the inner product.
Take the Fourier transform of Eqs. (1) and (2) as follow:

ϕ2p j p
jþ1 ðωÞ ¼ Hð2 ωÞϕj ðωÞ; ð5Þ

ϕ2pþ1 j p
jþ1 ðωÞ ¼ Gð2 ωÞϕj ðωÞ; ð6Þ

where HðωÞ, GðωÞ and ϕðωÞ are the Fourier transform of hðnÞ, gðnÞ and ψðtÞ respectively. Therefore, Eqs. (5) and (6) explain
that the frequency support of ϕpj ðωÞ is divided into two frequency bands whose energies concentrate on Hð2j ωÞ and Gð2j ωÞ,
respectively. For any node (j, p), wavelet packet coefficients of an original signal can be calculated by taking the inner
product of the original signal with every wavelet packet basis. In the fast binary wavelet packet decomposition algorithm,
2p 2pþ1
wavelet packet coefficients djþ1 ðnÞ and djþ1 ðnÞ are obtained by
2p p
djþ1 ðnÞ ¼ dj nhð−2nÞ; ð7Þ

2pþ1 p
djþ1 ðnÞ ¼ dj ngð−2nÞ; ð8Þ

where n is the convolution operator. In the reconstruction algorithm of wavelet packet decomposition, wavelet packet
coefficients are recalculated by
p
dj ðnÞ ¼ D2p 2pþ1
jþ1 nhðnÞ þ Djþ1 ngðnÞ; ð9Þ

where D means inserting a zero between each sample of d.

The frequency band of wavelet packet coefficients at a specific wavelet packet node ðj; pÞ is located in
½p  F s =2Jþ1 ; ðp þ 1Þ  F s =2Jþ1 , 0 ≤p ≤2J −1, where Fs is the sampling frequency. This indicates that a specific frequency band
can be established for a specific wavelet packet node (j, p). In other words, binary WPT has the ability to extract frequency
502 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

components at a desired frequency band. However, it is possible to reconstruct wavelet packet coefficients at a specific
wavelet packet node with the same temporal length as the original signal. This step can be realized by setting the wavelet
packet coefficients at all other wavelet packet nodes to zero and then reconstructing the specific wavelet packet coefficients
p
using Eq. (9). For convenient notation, the reconstructed wavelet packet coefficients are also represented by dj ðnÞ.

2.2. The proposed fast detection method based on the sparsogram for bearing fault diagnosis

When rolling element bearings suffer from localized faults, the strikes of rollers on the fault surfaces excite the resonant
frequencies of structures, which are accompanied by fault characteristic frequencies. Therefore, the bearing fault signatures
must be located within some frequency bands in the high frequency region. In terms of the principle of binary wavelet
packet decomposition algorithm, the bearing fault signatures can be reflected by wavelet packet coefficients located at one
or several wavelet packet nodes at different wavelet packet decomposition depths. One of these wavelet packet nodes that
contain more fault signatures than any other wavelet packet node is then chosen for further envelope analysis. Considering
all wavelet packet nodes at different wavelet packet decomposition depths, a new concept called a sparsogram is proposed
for the fast selection of the optimal wavelet packet node and the resonant frequency band. The new sparsogram is formed
by calculating the sparsity values of the power spectra from the envelopes of binary wavelet packet coefficients at different
wavelet packet decomposition depths and different wavelet packet nodes. Depending on the different sparsity values, the
new sparsogram can reflect the optimal wavelet packet node that contains many bearing fault signatures. Then, based on
the selected wavelet packet node, an envelope analysis can be used to detect bearing faults. The proposed bearing fault
diagnosis method based on the new sparsogram is shown in Fig. 2, where the details of the flowchart are given in the
following steps.
Step 1: Load an original bearing fault signal. Assume the maximum wavelet packet decomposition depth is equal to J.
Perform binary WPT on the original fault signal at different wavelet packet decomposition depths equal to 1,2,…, J.
To establish the upper limit of the maximum wavelet packet decomposition depth, it is suggested that the minimum
bandwidth of the wavelet packet coefficients obtained by WPT at the maximum decomposition depth J should be larger
than three times the outer race fault characteristic frequency [16].

Start

Load an original vibration signal

Perform binary wavelet packet transform on

the original signal at different depths and
reconstruct signals with the same temporal
length as the original signal

Generate a new sparsogram using the

sparsity measurements

Select a valuable wavelet packet node from

all wavelet packet nodes

Demodulate the selected wavelet packet

node signal by Hilbert transform to obtain an
envelope signal

Perform power spectrum on the envelope

signal and identify bearing fault
characteristic frequency and its harmonics

End

Fig. 2. The flowchart of the proposed method.

 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 503

The most important step for the use of binary WPT is the selection of a proper wavelet packet basis function because
wavelet packet coefficients are calculated according to the principle of inner product operation. Mathematically, it means
that the inner product operation is used to measure the similarity between two signals. Therefore, if the wavelet basis
function is very similar to the analyzed signal, the result obtained by the inner product operation will have a large value.
For bearing fault diagnosis, the Daubechies mother wavelet provides the fast binary WPT and is widely used in bearing fault
diagnosis [16,17,19,20] because its shape is similar to the impulse generated by bearing localized faults. Hence, a Daubechies
10 wavelet [17] was employed to implement binary WPT.
Step 2: After wavelet packet coefficients at different wavelet packet nodes and different wavelet packet decomposition
depths are obtained, the sparsity values measured from the power spectra of the envelopes of wavelet packet coefficients
are calculated. In order to get the envelopes, first, it is necessary to construct an analytical signal. The real part of the
analytical signal is the wavelet packet coefficients at each wavelet packet node and the imaginary part of the analytical
signal is the Hilbert transform of wavelet packet coefficients at each wavelet packet node. The envelope signal for each
wavelet packet node is obtained by taking the modulus of the analytical signal. After that, autocorrelation with the Fourier
transform, namely the power spectrum, is used to map the temporal envelope signals of wavelet packet coefficients into a
frequency domain. Here, assume the envelope signal has a mean of zero and its corresponding power spectrum is denoted
p
as dj ðf Þ. The sparsity value can be calculated using Eq. (10) given as follow [8–10]:
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Fs=2−1
p
∑ ðdj ðf ÞÞ2 p
f ¼0 ∥dj ðf Þ∥2
Sðj; pÞ ¼ Spj ¼ ¼ p ; 1 ≤j ≤J; 0 ≤p ≤2J −1; ð10Þ
Fs=2−1
p ∥dj ðf Þ∥1
∑ jdj ðf Þj
f ¼0

p p
where ∥dj ðf Þ∥2 and ∥dj ðf Þ∥1 are L2 norm and L1 norm, respectively. Once all sparsity values for all wavelet packet nodes at
different wavelet packet decomposition depths are calculated, the paving of the new sparsogram is shown in Fig. 3, where a
one-dimensional signal is depicted in a two-dimensional sparsity value based figure. Here, assume the maximum wavelet
packet decomposition depth is 4.
In the case of only bearing faults, the largest sparsity value is selected to indicate the optimal wavelet packet node that
contains the most useful resonant frequency band. However, it should be pointed out that the frequency band of the wavelet
packet coefficients extracted from the optimal wavelet packet node may be not proper to cover a whole resonant frequency
band because the frequency band of the wavelet packet coefficients is mathematically fixed prior to the signal analysis and
may only cover the part of the resonant frequency band. Therefore, the sparsogram just reports a fast detection scheme to
choose the coarse resonant frequency band.
In the case of multiple faults, it is possible to consider the first several largest sparsity values obtained from different
wavelet packet nodes because different fault signatures may be located in different frequency bands (such as, low frequency
bands for periodic fault components being caused by unbalance, misalignments, eccentricities, etc., and high frequency
bands for random transient fault components being caused by bearing faults). In the case of multiple vibration components
that result from a single vibration mixture, it is a blind component separation problem. Different separation algorithms [1],
such as linear prediction, adaptive noise cancellation, self-adaptive cancellation, and discrete/random separation, could be
used to separate low-frequency periodic fault components from the single vibration mixture before the new sparsogram is
used for bearing fault diagnosis.
Step 3: After the useful wavelet packet node is indicated by the sparsogram, the demodulation (the Hilbert transform
demodulation method stated in Step 2) is performed to get the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from
the useful wavelet packet node, which shows more obvious fault signatures than the original fault signal.
Step 4: Autocorrelation [21,22] with the Fourier analysis, namely the power spectrum, is useful for identifying the
potential periodic intervals. In the time domain, the autocorrelation of the envelope signal has the ability to exhibit potential
bearing fault characteristic periods, which are approximately the reciprocal of bearing fault characteristic frequencies. In the
frequency domain, the power spectrum directly shows the bearing fault characteristic frequencies themselves. The outer
race fault characteristic frequency fo, the inner race fault characteristic frequency fI and the ball spinning frequency fBS are

Fig. 3. The paving of the sparsogram at the maximum wavelet packet decomposition depth of 4.
504 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

given as follow [1]:

 
Z  fs d
fO ¼ 1− cos β ; ð11Þ
2 D
 
Z  fs d
fI ¼ 1þ cos β ; ð12Þ
2 D
 2 !
D  fs d
f BS ¼ 1− cos β ; ð13Þ
2d D

where fs is the shaft rotating frequency in Hz, d and D are the diameters of the rolling element and pitch diameter,
respectively. Z is the number of rolling elements and β is the contact angle. Eq. (13) is the frequency calculated by
considering that a defective roller strikes both inner and outer races.

3. Validation of the proposed method

3.1. A simulated bearing fault signal with two resonant frequency bands

The similar simulated bearing fault signal used in Ref. [23] was produced as
yðkÞ ¼ ∑ expð−α  ðk−r  F s =f m −τr Þ=F s Þ  sin ð2πf 1  ðk−r  F s =f m −τr Þ=F s Þ
r
þ∑ expð−α  ðk−r  F s =f m −τr Þ=F s Þ  sin ð2πf 2  ðk−r  F s =f m −τr Þ=F s Þ; ð14Þ
r

where α is equal to 900, fm is the fault frequency (equal to 100 Hz), Fs is the sampling frequency (set to 12,000 Hz), f1 is the
resonant frequency (equal to 1700 Hz) and f2 is equal to 4200 Hz. τr is subject to a discrete uniform distribution, which is
used to simulate the randomness caused by roller slippage. Here, two resonance frequencies were embedded in the
simulated bearing fault signal because Ref. [24] reported that the first several resonant frequencies were distributed in
different frequency bands. Although 24,000 samples were used, to display the transient components clearly, only 2500
samples were displayed in the simulated case. A normally distributed random heavy noise signal with a mean of 0 and a

1
Amplitude

0
-1
500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Samples
Amplitude

2
0
-2
500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Samples
Amplitude

2
0
-2

500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Samples

4
Amplitude

2
0
-2
500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Samples
Fig. 4. The temporal signals: (a) the simulated signal with two resonant frequency bands; (b) the intentionally added normally distributed noise with
variance of 0.6 (heavy noise); (c) the simulated signal mixed with the heavy noise and (d) the final signal obtained by the fast sparsogram.
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 505

Node (4,4) Node (4,11)

x 10-4
5
4
4.5

4
3
3.5

Depth 3
2 2.5

1 1.5

1
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 5. The sparsogram of the mixed signal with two resonant frequency bands.

1500
Amplitude

1000

500

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Frequency (Hz)

400

300
Amplitude

200

100

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Frequency (Hz)

1500
Amplitude

1000

500

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 6. The signals in frequency domain: (a) the original mixed signal with two resonant frequency bands; (b) the low frequency components of Fig. 6(a);
(c) the signal extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 4) by binary WPT.
506 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

variance of 0.6 was added to Eq. (14). The simulated signal, the noisy signal and the mixed signal with noise are shown in
Fig. 4(a), (b) and (c), respectively.
In Fig. 4(c), it is difficult to distinguish the potential periodic intervals of the signal mixed with noise. The new
sparsogram was applied to the mixed signal and the results are shown in Fig. 5. Through the analysis of Fig. 5, wavelet
packet node (4, 4) with the largest sparsity value was used for further analysis. It should be noted that the sparsity at
wavelet packet node (4, 11) has the second largest sparsity value among all of the wavelet packet nodes. This illustrates that

fm

600
Amplitude

400
2fm
200 3fm

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 7. The power spectrum of the envelope of the signal extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 4) using the fast sparsogram.

0
3
0.1
0.2 2

0.3
1
Noise variance

0.4
0.5 0

0.6
-1
0.7
0.8 -2

0.9
-3
1
500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Samples
Fig. 8. The mixed signals with different noise variances (The mixed signal has two resonant frequency bands.).

0
0.1 0.8

0.2 0.6
0.3
Noise variance

0.4
0.4
0.5 0.2

0.6 0
0.7
-0.2
0.8
-0.4
0.9
1 -0.6
500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Samples
Fig. 9. The autocorrelation of the envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients obtained by WPT in the case of the simulated signal mixed with heavy noise.
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 507

the sparsogram is able to detect two resonant frequency bands at the same time. The frequency spectrum of the wavelet
packet coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 4) is shown in Fig. 6(c). For comparison, the frequency spectrum
of the mixed signal is plotted in Fig. 6(a), which indicates that the new sparsogram can provide the correct wavelet packet
node for further envelope analysis. Fig. 6(b) is the low frequency range of Fig. 6(a). Fig. 6(b) shows that the fault frequency of
100 Hz is difficult to be directly identified by the fast Fourier transform (FFT) spectrum because the fault frequency of 100 Hz
is overwhelmed by heavy noise.
The final result obtained by the proposed method is shown in Fig. 7, which demonstrates that the proposed method
effectively detects fault frequency 100 Hz and its harmonic frequencies. The corresponding temporal signal of the signal
shown in Fig. 7 is shown in Fig. 4(d), compared to the temporal mixed signal in Fig. 4(c). The intervals of 120 samples could
be clearly observed.
Finally, a group of normally distributed random signals with a mean of 0 and different variances (from 0 to 1 with a step
length of 0.05) were added to Eq. (14). The mixed signals with different noise variances are plotted in Fig. 8. Obviously, the
potential periodic intervals are difficult to be identified when noise variances increase. The results obtained by the proposed
method are shown in Figs. 9 and 10. In Fig. 9, it is easy to identify the periodic intervals, even though the mixed signals are
overwhelmed by heavy noises. The results in Fig. 10 show that the proposed method can detect the fault frequency 100 Hz
and its harmonics at different noise variances.

0
0.1 450

0.2 400

0.3 350
Noise variance

0.4 300

0.5 250

0.6 200
0.7 150
0.8 100
0.9 50
1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 10. The power spectra of the envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients obtained by WPT for the simulated signal mixed with heavy noise
(two resonant frequencies).

Accelerometer

Tested bearing

Fig. 11. An experiment motor and the faulty components of the tested bearings. (a) An experimental motor, (b) a tested bearing (SKF 1206 EKTN9), (c) a
defect on an outer race, (d) An defect on an inner race and (e) a defect in a ball.
508 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

10

Amplitude
0

-10

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000

Samples

5
Amplitude

0
-5

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000

Samples
20
Amplitude

-20
2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000
Samples

4000
Amplitude

2000

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Frequency (Hz) x 104
2000
Amplitude

1000

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Frequency (Hz) x 104

4000
Amplitude

2000

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Frequency (Hz) x 104
Fig. 12. The collected bearing signals caused by (a) an outer race defect; (b) an inner race defect; (c) a ball defect; (d) outer race and inner race defects; and
the frequency spectra of the signals generated from (e) an outer race defect; (f) an inner race defect; (g) a ball defect and (h) outer race and inner race
defects.

3.2. Experimental validation through real bearing data

Several experiments were conducted in the Smart Engineering Asset Management Laboratory using an AC induction
motor driven system. The speed of the motor was set to around 1400 rpm. The motor, the monitored bearing and each type
of artificially introduced fault are shown in Fig. 11. Four kinds of bearing defects, including an outer race defect, an inner race
defect, a rolling element defect and the combination of the outer race and inner race defects were introduced to the
bearings. The sampling frequency was set to 80 kHz. The length of each sampled fault signal was 16,000 samples. According
to Eqs. (11)–(13), the bearing outer race fault characteristic frequency, the bearing inner race fault characteristic frequency,
and the bearing ball spinning frequency were calculated as 136 Hz, 192 Hz, and 64 Hz, respectively.
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 509

Amplitude
0

-2

-4
2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000
Samples

600
Amplitude

400

200

0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Frequency (Hz) x 104
Fig. 13. The collected bearing signal caused by a bearing with multiple faults, which included the outer race and inner race defects: (a) the temporal signal
and (b) the frequency spectra.

Node (4, 3)
x 10-3

4 2.5

2
3
Depth

1.5

2
1

1 0.5

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Frequency (Hz) x 104
Fig. 14. The sparsogram for detecting an outer race defect.

The bearing outer race fault signal, the bearing inner race fault signal and the bearing ball fault signal and their
corresponding frequency spectra are plotted in Fig. 12. An extra bearing vibration signal from a bearing that suffered
multiple faults which included the outer race and inner race defects was collected. The temporal waveform of the raw multi-
fault vibration signal is plotted in Fig. 13(a) and its corresponding frequency spectrum is plotted in Fig. 13(b). Note that the
impacts caused by outer race and inner race defects are hardly distinguishable from the temporal waveform. The expected
outer race fault characteristic frequency and inner race fault characteristic frequency are also difficult to be identified from
the frequency spectrum.
The proposed method was applied to the bearing outer race fault signal shown in Fig. 12(a). The result obtained by the
sparsogram is given in Fig. 14, where it is clear that wavelet packet node (4, 3) has the largest sparsity value. Therefore, it is
optimal to choose wavelet packet node (4, 3) for envelope analysis. The envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted
from wavelet packet node (4, 3) is shown in Fig. 15(a). The potential periodic interval is equal to 591 samples (approximately
equal to 80,000/136¼588 samples). Furthermore, its counterpart in the frequency domain as displayed in Fig. 15(b) shows
510 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

Amplitude
4

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000

Samples

6000 fO

2fO
Amplitude

4000
3fO
4fO
2000 5fO
6fO

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 15. The results obtained by the sparsogram for detecting an outer race defect: (a) the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from
wavelet packet node (4, 3); (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 3).

Node (4,2) Node (4,6)

x 10-3

2.2
4
2
1.8
1.6
3
1.4
Depth

1.2
2 1
0.8
0.6
1 0.4
0.2
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Frequency (Hz) x 104
Fig. 16. The sparsogram in this paper for detecting an inner race defect.

that the bearing outer race characteristic frequency and its harmonics are easily detected. The results shown in Fig. 15
demonstrate that the sparsogram effectively extracts the most useful frequency band for bearing outer race fault diagnosis.
Second, to detect the fault signal shown in Fig. 12(b), the sparsogram was used to select the optimal wavelet packet node
for further analysis. The result obtained by the sparsogram is shown in Fig. 16. Wavelet packet node (4, 2) has the largest
sparsity value and wavelet packet node (4, 6) has the second largest sparsity value. Thus, the wavelet packet coefficients
extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 2) using WPT was used for further envelope analysis. The final results are shown in
Fig. 17(a) and (b). Although it is not easy to find the periodic characteristics of the temporal signal shown in Fig. 17(a), the
bearing inner race fault characteristic frequency and its first harmonic in Fig. 17(b) clearly report the bearing suffered from
inner race localized faults. Therefore, the proposed method based on the sparsogram effectively extracts the bearing inner
race fault features.
Thirdly, the sparsogram was employed to analyze the bearing fault signal plotted in Fig. 12(c). The result obtained by the
sparsogram is shown in Fig. 18, indicating that wavelet packet node (4, 5) has the largest sparsity value and that wavelet
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 511

Amplitude
2

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000

Samples

8000
fI
6000
Amplitude

4000
2fI
2000

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 17. The results obtained by the proposed method for detecting an inner race defect: (a) the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from
wavelet packet node (4, 2); (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 2).

Node (4,3) Node (4,5)

x 10-4
12
4 11
10
9
3 8
Depth

7
6
2
5
4
3
1
2

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Frequency (Hz) x 104
Fig. 18. The sparsogram in this paper for detecting a ball defect.

packet node (4, 3) has the second largest sparsity value. The envelope of the signal extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 5)
is shown in Fig. 19(a), where the potential periodic intervals are found. In contrast, the power spectrum from the envelope of
the signal extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 5) is shown in Fig. 19(b), where the ball spinning frequency and its
harmonics are detected.
Finally, the raw multi-fault signal plotted in Fig. 13(a) was analyzed by the sparsogram. The result obtained by the
sparsogram is given in Fig. 20, where the most useful wavelet packet node (4, 9) has the largest sparsity value among all
wavelet packet nodes on the sparsogram. In order to find fault signatures in a lower frequency band, the wavelet packet
coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 9) was demodulated for envelope analysis. The envelope signal from
wavelet packet node (4, 9) and its corresponding power spectrum are plotted in Fig. 21(a) and (b). Both outer race fault
characteristic frequency and inner race fault characteristic frequency can be detected visually. The results illustrate that the
proposed method is able to detect the multi-fault signatures.
512 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

10
8

Amplitude
6
4
2
0
2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000
Samples

5000 2fBS
4000 fBS 3fBS
Amplitude

3000 4fBS
2000 5fBS

1000 6fBS

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 19. The results obtained by the fast sparsogram for detecting a ball defect: (a) the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from wavelet
packet node (4, 5); (b) the power spectrum of the wavelet packet coefficients in Fig. 19(a).

Node (4,9) x 10-4

14

4
12

3 10
Depth

8
2
6

1 4

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Frequency (Hz) x 104
Fig. 20. The sparsogram in this paper for detecting outer race and inner race defects.

In conclusion, the sparsogram-based bearing fault diagnosis method effectively detects different bearing defects,
including an outer race defect, an inner race defect, a ball defect and multiple defects which included outer race and inner
race defects. Additionally, these significant wavelet packet nodes selected for the envelope analysis are able to fasten the
convergence of an optimal complex Morlet wavelet filter, which will be reported in Part 2 paper. In other words, these
significant wavelet packet nodes can be used to provide the proper initial center frequencies and bandwidths for the use of
genetic algorithm that searches the best solution over a narrow solution zone. The details about these initial center
frequencies and bandwidths provided by the selected wavelet packet nodes are illustrated as follow. Recalling that
the frequency band of a specific wavelet packet node (j, p) is located in the frequency range ½p  F s =2Jþ1 ; ðp þ 1Þ  F s =2Jþ1 ,
the center frequency and bandwidth for the specific wavelet packet node are ½ð2p þ 1Þ  F s =2Jþ2 ; F s =2Jþ1 . Therefore, for the
simulated bearing fault signal, the initial center frequencies and bandwidths provided by wavelet packet nodes (4, 4) and
(4, 11) are (1687.5 Hz, 375 Hz) and (4312.5 Hz, 375 Hz). The initial center frequency and bandwidth provided by wavelet
packet node (4, 3) for the bearing outer race fault signal is (8750 Hz, 2500 Hz). For the bearing inner race fault signal, the
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 513

0.4

0.3

Amplitude
0.2

0.1

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000

Samples

400 fO
2fO
Amplitude

300
3fO
200
fI 4fO
2fI 5fO 6fO
100

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 21. The results obtained by the fast sparsogram for detecting outer race and inner race defects: (a) the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients
extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 9); (b) the power spectrum of the wavelet packet coefficients shown in Fig. 21(a).

Node (4,8)

5.5

3
4.5
Depth

2 4

3.5
1

1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Frequency (Hz)

2000
Amplitude

1500

1000

500

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 22. The results obtained by the kurtosis based wavelet packet decomposition method: (a) the paving of the kurtosis values of the envelopes of the
wavelet packet coefficients for the simulated signal mixed with heavy noise; (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients
extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 8).
514 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

Node (4,7)

0.84
4

0.83

0.82
3
0.81
Depth

0.8

2
0.79

0.78

1
0.77

1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Frequency (Hz)

2000
Amplitude

1000

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 23. The results obtained by the smoothness index based wavelet packet decomposition method: (a) the paving of the smoothness index values of the
envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients for the simulated signal mixed with heavy noise; (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet
coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 7).

initial center frequencies and bandwidths provided by wavelet packet nodes (4, 2) and (4, 6) are (6250 Hz, 2500 Hz) and
(16,250 Hz, 2500 Hz). For the bearing ball fault signal, the initial center frequencies and bandwidths provided by wavelet
packet nodes (4, 3) and (4, 5) are (8750 Hz, 2500 Hz) and (13,750 Hz, 2500 Hz). For the bearing outer race and inner race
fault signal, the initial center frequency and bandwidth provided by wavelet packet node (4, 9) are (23,750 Hz, 2500 Hz).

3.3. Comparisons with other popular methods

For the purpose of comparing the effectiveness of the fast sparsogram against that contributed by other popular metric
based wavelet packet decomposition methods, such as the kurtosis [25], the smoothness index [26] and Shannon entropy [27],
two previously used fault signals are used in this comparison study. The first signal is the simulated signal mixed by
heavy noise as shown in Fig. 4(c). The second signal is obtained from the previously mentioned bearing ball faulty signal as
shown in Fig. 12(c). The bearing ball fault signal is selected because it is a typical localized fault and contains more
complexity than that generated by the outer race fault and the inner race fault. All compared methods are used to quantify
the envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from wavelet packet nodes at different wavelet packet
decomposition depths. The use of the above three popular methods for the quantification of the wavelet packet coefficients
obtained by binary wavelet packet transform is capable of distinguishing different bearing health status. Kurtosis measures
the peakedness of the probability distribution of a bearing fault signal. A large kurtosis value indicates the cyclic
impulsiveness of bearing fault signals. Some classic examples concerning the use of kurtosis for designing filters are the
fast Kurtogram proposed by Antoni [4] and the improved Kurtogram proposed by Lei et al. [25]. The definition of the
smoothness index is the ratio of the geometric mean to the arithmetic mean of a positive signal [26]. A small smoothness
index value indicates the occurrence of bearing fault impulses. Bozchalooi and Liang [26,28] used the smoothness index to
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 515

Node (4,8)

9.94
4
9.93

9.92

3 9.91
Depth

9.9

9.89
2
9.88

9.87

9.86
1
9.85

1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Frequency (Hz)

2000
Amplitude

1500

1000

500

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 24. The results obtained by the Shannon entropy based wavelet packet decomposition method: (a) the paving of the Shannon entropy values of the
envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients for the simulated signal mixed with heavy noise; (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet
coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 8).

quantify the envelope of the signal filtered by the complex Morlet wavelet for deciding the parameters of the optimal
complex Morlet wavelet. Su et al. [27] suggested that Shannon entropy could be used to select the parameters of the Morlet
wavelet for bearing fault diagnosis. A small Shannon entropy value indicates the occurrence of bearing fault impulsive
signals.
The paving of the kurtosis values of the envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients obtained by binary wavelet packet
transform for the simulated signal mixed with heavy noise is plotted in Fig. 22(a), where wavelet packet node (4, 8) has the
largest kurtosis value which illustrates wavelet packet node (4, 8) contains the most useful bearing fault signatures.
However, in Fig. 22(b), the power spectrum of the enveloped signal extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 8) does not
provide any signatures concerning the modulating frequency of 100 Hz. It means that this method fails to detect the
simulated bearing fault signatures. Actually, the paving of the kurtosis values calculated from the wavelet packet nodes is
the improved Kurtogram recently proposed by Lei et al. [25]. The paving of the smoothness index values of the envelopes of
the wavelet packet coefficients obtained by binary wavelet packet transform for the same simulated signal mixed with
heavy noise is depicted in Fig. 23(a). In this case, wavelet packet node (4, 7) is the optimal node among all wavelet packet
nodes. However, in Fig. 23(b), the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from wavelet
packet node (4, 7) does not exhibit the modulating frequency of 100 Hz and its harmonics. The paving of the Shannon
entropy values of the envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients for the simulated bearing fault signal accompanied with
heavy noisy is plotted in Fig. 24(a), where wavelet packet node (4, 8) is selected as the optimal node. In Fig. 24(b), the power
spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 8) illustrates that the
Shannon entropy based wavelet packet paving is ineffective in indicating one of the resonant frequency bands. Compared
with the results shown in Figs. 22–24, the results from the fast sparsogram that are plotted in Figs. 5 and 7 illustrate that the
fast sparsogram not only can detect the modulating frequency of 100 Hz but also can show the exact locations of two
516 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

resonant frequency bands. Hence, this comparison study demonstrates that the fast sparsogram is more effective in
detecting weak simulated bearing fault signal that have been overwhelmed by heavy noise.
To further verify the effectiveness of sparsogram, the comparison study was extended to real bearing ball fault signal as
plotted in Fig. 12(c). The results obtained from the sparsogram as shown in Fig. 19(b) are used to compare the results
obtained from the three popular methods. In Fig. 25(a), the paving of the kurtosis values of the envelopes of the wavelet
packet coefficients indicates that wavelet packet node (4, 2) contains the optimal bearing fault signatures. The power
spectrum of the envelope of the signal extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 2) is plotted in Fig. 25(b), where the ball
spinning frequency and its harmonics can be observed. It should be noted that the ball spinning frequency and its harmonics
shown in Fig. 25(b) are not as remarkable as those shown in Fig. 19(b). The paving of the smoothness index values of the
envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients at different wavelet packet nodes and different wavelet packet decomposition
depths for the bearing ball fault signal is shown in Fig. 26(a). In Fig. 26(b), the power spectrum of the envelope of the signal
extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 3) indicates the existence of the bearing ball localized faults. Although the ball
spinning frequency and its harmonics can be seen in Fig. 26(b), some of the harmonics, such as the 4fBS, is not as obvious as
that shown in Fig. 19(b). The paving of the Shannon entropy values of the envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients for
processing the bearing ball fault signal is plotted in Fig. 27(a), where wavelet packet node (4, 5) is selected as the optimal
node. In Fig. 27(b), the power spectrum of the envelope signal extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 5) is the same as that
shown in Fig. 19(b) because their results come from the same node.
Through the above analyses, it is concluded that the sparsogram can generate better visual images for the operators
to detect bearing faults, especially for the complex ball fault signal and the signals that are overwhelmed with heavy noise.

Node (4, 2)
40

4
35

30

3
25
Depth

20
2
15

10
1
5

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Frequency (Hz) x 104

4000 2fBS
Amplitude

3000 3fBS
fBS 4fBS
2000
5fBS
1000

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 25. The results obtained by the kurtosis based wavelet packet decomposition method: (a) the paving of the kurtosis values of the envelopes of the
wavelet packet coefficients for processing the real bearing ball fault signal and (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet packet coefficients
extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 2).
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 517

Node (4,3)

0.84

4 0.82

0.8

0.78
3
Depth

0.76

0.74
2
0.72

0.7

1 0.68

0.66
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Frequency (Hz) x 104

6000 2fBS
Amplitude

4000
3fBS
fBS
2000 5fBS

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 26. The results obtained by the smoothness index based wavelet packet decomposition method: (a) the paving of the smoothness index values of the
envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients for processing the real bearing ball fault signal and (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet
packet coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 3).

The comparisons of the performance for the sparsogram, the improved kurtogram, the smoothness index based WPT and
the Shannon entropy based WPT are summarized in Table 1. The results demonstrate that the sparsogram has better
performance than that provided by the three popular methods, particularly for the case when the bearing fault signals have
been corrupted by heavy noise.

4. Conclusion

This paper proposed a new and fast method, called sparsogram, for rolling element bearing fault detection. First, the
wavelet packet coefficients at different wavelet packet depths and different wavelet packet nodes are obtained by using
binary wavelet packet transform. Second, the sparsity values of the power spectra from the envelopes of these wavelet
packet coefficients are measured. The sparsogram is then constructed by arranging these sparsity values in the form of a
two-dimensional diagram. From the sparsogram, the wavelet packet node that has the largest sparsity value can be
identified. This specific wavelet packet node should contain more bearing fault signatures that other nodes that have smaller
sparsity values. Hence, the sparsogram helps to find the optimal node for better bearing fault diagnosis. To validate the
ability of sparsogram, two studies, which included the simulated bearing fault signal mixed with heavy noise and the real
bearing fault signals were investigated. From the results generated by the simulated case, they show that the sparsogram is
a fast and effective method that is able to choose a useful fault frequency band that contains most bearing fault signatures.
Moreover, the sparsogram is able to detect simulated fault signal even at a very low signal-to-noise ratio. In the cases of
testing with real bearings, the sparsogram could effectively detect bearings that had different types of fault as well as
518 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519

Node (4,5)

4 9.5

9.45

3
9.4
Depth

2 9.35

9.3

1
9.25

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Frequency (Hz) x 104

fBS 2fBS
4000 3fBS
Amplitude

4fBS
2000 5fBS
6fBS

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 27. The results obtained by the Shannon entropy based wavelet packet decomposition method: (a) the paving of the Shannon entropy values of the
envelopes of the wavelet packet coefficients for processing the real bearing ball fault signal and (b) the power spectrum of the envelope of the wavelet
packet coefficients extracted from wavelet packet node (4, 5).

Table 1
The performance comparisons of the sparsogram, the improved Kurtogram, the smoothness index based WPT and the Shannon entropy based WPT (Note:
Case 1 is about the simulated signal (two resonant frequency bands) corrupted by heavy noise; Case 2 is about the real laboratorial ball fault signal.).

Effective in detecting bearing faults? Visual inspection ability Best wavelet packet node

Case 1 Case 2 Case 1 Case 2 Case 1 Case 2

Sparsogram Yes Yes High High (4, 4) (4, 5)

Improved Kurtogram No Yes Null Medium (4, 8) (4, 2)
Smoothness index based WPT No Yes Null Medium (4, 7) (4, 3)
Shannon entropy based WPT No Yes Null High (4, 8) (4, 5)

multiple faults. Comparison studies with three popular methods were also conducted. The results show that the sparsogram
provides better visual inspection than the other three methods commonly used for bearing fault detection.
The sparsogram may not work as expected if the bearing resonant frequency band is located in the overlapping
frequency band of a wavelet filter bank, the bearing resonant frequency band must be split into two adjacent frequency
bands, resulting in the reduction of the bearing fault characteristics. Hence, an optimal wavelet filter based on the use of the
sparsity measurement is required to be developed. A successive part of this Part 1 paper has been prepared to describe a
method in developing an optimal Morlet wavelet filter for bearing fault diagnosis. The detailed methodology is presented in
 P.W. Tse, D. Wang / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 40 (2013) 499–519 519

a successive paper called ‘Part 2 – the automatic selection of an optimal wavelet filter and its enhancement by the new
sparsogram for bearing fault detection’.

Acknowledgments

The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region, China (Project no. CityU 122011) and a grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project no.
7008187).

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