A novel wind turbine condition monitoring method based on cloud

computing
Peng Qian a, Dahai Zhang b, *, Xiange Tian a, Yulin Si b, Liangbi Li c
a
Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, Brunel University London, UB8 3PH, UK
b
Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
c
School of Naval Architecture & Ocean Engineering, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, 212003, China

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

Article history: With the development of condition monitoring technology, the data collected by sensors are voluminous
Received 13 May 2018 and much faster than before. The cloud computing technology is a good solution for big data processing,
Received in revised form it is therefore very suitable to be applied in the condition monitoring of the wind turbine, especially for
24 September 2018
data-driven model-based condition monitoring methods. In order to solve this problem, a novel wind
Accepted 10 December 2018
Available online 10 December 2018
turbine condition monitoring method based on cloud computing is proposed in this paper. A data-driven
model-based condition monitoring (CM) method by using hierarchical extreme learning machine (H-
ELM) algorithm is adopted to achieve fault detection of the gearbox in the wind turbine, which has better
Index Terms:
Cloud computing
performance than traditional ELM method. Then, compressed sensing (CS) method is applied to
Wind turbine compress the first hidden layer output that will be uploaded to the cloud for further calculation. The
Data security proposed method is not only able to detect the faults effectively, but also considering data upload
SCADA data quantity reduction and data security. The case study validates the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Hierarchical extreme learning machine Consequently, it is effective and can also enhance economic benefit and operating efficiency of the wind
Compressed sensing farm.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction method to increase the reliability of the wind turbine, which is

There has been a dramatic increase in the construction of wind
farms over the past decade in global world, especially offshore wind
installations, contributing to all around the world achieving targets
for reducing CO2 emissions and the production of sustainable en-
ergy [1,2]. After Renewable Energy Law issued in 2006, the instal-
lation of wind turbines has witnessed a rapid growth by over 40
times from 2006 to 2015. From year 2015e2020, the new installa-
tion of the wind turbines will be expected to reach 25e30 GW per
year. By year 2020, the total new installation of the wind turbines
will be anticipated to 125e150 GW, which meets 2.5% of the annual
power demand [3]. However, wind turbines are usually installed in
harsh environment, particularly for offshore wind farm. It poses a
challenge for operation and maintenance of the wind turbine. Over
an operating life of 20 years, the maintenance costs of offshore
wind farm contribute 30% of the total income. Condition moni-
toring of the wind turbine has been considered as an effective
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: peng.qian@brunel.ac.uk (P. Qian), zhangdahai@zju.edu.cn
(D. Zhang).
beneficial to schedule cost-effective maintenance.
Data-driven method is an effective method in condition moni-
toring systems [4,5]. The main advantage of data-driven method is
that it does not need knowledge of the process. They are gained
directly from measured data that is collected either during planned
experiments or normal operation processes. Compared with
mechanistic modelling techniques, it requires a thorough under-
standing of the system structure and operational mechanism,
which leads to a complex model for condition monitoring. It is clear
that a complex condition monitoring model is not suitable for on-
line condition monitoring systems. Data-driven model is estab-
lished to predict the operational parameters of the wind turbine.
Then, the actual data collected from the wind turbine is compared
with the prediction data gained from a data-driven model. Any
differences between the actual data and the prediction data could
be caused by changes of the system, and may be caused by the
occurrence of faults. Hence, the establishment of the accurate
prediction model is the key step of a data-driven model-based
condition monitoring method, which is used to simulate the dy-
namic behaviours of the components and subsystems in the wind
turbine. In this field, various artificial intelligence (AI) approaches
 P. Qian et al. / Renewable Energy 135 (2019) 390e398
are utilized to establish data-driven model-based condition moni-
toring schemes, such as neural networks (NNs), support vector
machines (SVMs), boosting tree algorithm (BTA), and k-nearest
neighbours [6e8]. These algorithms are used to predict target pa-
rameters by using relevant input data. NN based method has a good
performance operating in noisy environments, because it is robust
to noises [9]. Generally, SVMs tend to have more accurate training
results and better generalised performance than NN based methods
[10]. BTA is more robust against overfitting than NNs and SVMs;
Moreover, BTA has less parameters, which is beneficial to model
design [11]. K-nearest neighbours is not only suitable to use in noisy
environments, but also good at large data training processes [12].
However, the above mentioned methods have the drawback of the
high computational load, which poses a big challenge for data base
to do the signal processing work due to the performance limitation
of the computer [13].
In previous research, the research results of the wind turbine
condition monitoring system are designed based on client server
data processing. With the rapid increasing installation of the wind
turbine, the condition monitoring of the wind turbine becomes a
challenge, due to voluminous data generated from sensors. Big data
analysis for condition monitoring system requires massive calcu-
lation. However, the normal client server usually has limited
computing power, while high performance client server has an
issue of high cost. The cloud computing technology has received a
great attention due to its advantages [14]. Compared with the
traditional client server, cloud computing platform has advantages
of high cost efficient, fast computing speed, almost unlimited
storage and easy access to information [15]. Thus, applying the
cloud computing technology into the condition monitoring is very
significant [16]. However, cloud computing suffers a problem of
network security that significantly interferes the safety of data.
Data leaks will cause cyber-attacks against the wind power gen-
eration system, which will pose a critical threat to reliability of the
electric power system, due to increasing integration of wind power
generation system [17]. Hence, the safety of the wind turbine
operating data will become a non-negligible factor in the wind farm
management. It is also worth noting that the cost of using cloud
computing platform is generally determined by the quantity of data
upload. Hence, it would be desirable to adopt some methods that
ensure data security and reduce data upload quantity under the
condition of satisfying the accuracy of the model.
Generally, the previous condition monitoring systems are based
on normal client server. In this paper, a novel wind turbine con-
dition monitoring method based on cloud computing is proposed
for gearbox fault diagnosis. The faults happened in the gearbox
usually account for a considerable proportion of total faults, which
could contribute to approximately 20% of the downtime of a
doubly-fed induction generator wind turbine, especially for
offshore wind farms [9]. A data-driven model-based condition
monitoring method by using hierarchical extreme learning ma-
chine (H-ELM) algorithm is adopted to achieve fault detection of
the gearbox in the wind turbine. Then, compressed sensing (CS)
method is selected to compress the first hidden layer output, which
is not only able to detect the faults effectively, but also considering
data upload quantity reduction and data security.
The main contributions of this paper are given as follows:
- A novel data-driven model-based wind turbine condition
monitoring method based on cloud computing system is pro-
posed. Essentially, the aim of the proposed method is to
implement the complicate data-driven model-based condition
monitoring algorithm in the cloud computing platform instead
of on a client server. It will significantly reduce the cost of the
condition monitoring system.
391
- H-ELM method is firstly applied in the condition monitoring of
the wind turbine.
- CS method is applied to compress the first hidden layer output
of H-ELM model, which not only reduces data upload quantity,
but also ensures data security.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: The
parameter description and selection for prediction model are pre-
sented in Section II. Section III illustrates the framework of wind
turbine condition monitoring method based on cloud computing.
Section IV describes the working principle of the hierarchical
extreme learning. Section V illustrates the data compression
method combined with the data-driven model-based condition
monitoring system. Case studies using SCADA (Supervisory Control
and Data Acquisition) data are then performed and the results are
shown and discussed in Section VI; Section VII contains conclusions
and suggestions for further research.
2. Parameter description and selection
In previous research, vibration analysis, and acoustic emission
analysis have been developed to establish the wind turbine con-
dition monitoring system. However, the above mentioned methods
have the limitations of data storage capacity and installation of
additional equipment cost for condition monitoring systems of the
wind turbine [12,18]. Temperature based condition monitoring
methods by using Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
(SCADA) data have been applied in fault diagnosis of bearings,
generators gearboxes, shafts, and power converters [19]. In com-
mercial wind turbine SCADA data system, the temperature data
accounts for 40% proportion of the whole data. SCADA system plays
a critical role in the condition monitoring system of the wind tur-
bine, which can provide a large number of operational parameters
of the wind turbine, such as climate parameters (e.g., ambient
temperature, wind speed, wind direction), temperatures (e.g.,
gearbox oil temperature, generator temperature, bearing temper-
ature), electrical parameters (e.g., voltage, current, frequency), and
energy conversion parameters (e.g., power generation, torque, rotor
speed, pitch angle) [20]. SCADA data is therefore widely used in
research of the wind turbine condition monitoring [21]. In previous
research, SCADA data based condition monitoring method has been
applied in condition monitoring of the wind turbine drivetrain
system such as gearbox, bearing and shaft. However, the data ob-
tained from SCADA system, including temperature, rotor speed,
torque, and oil pressure of are relevant to meteorological condition.
Hence, SCADA data based condition monitoring methods are usu-
ally combined with many artificial intelligence algorithm [22]. So it
is necessary to develop an efficient temperature based condition
monitoring method for the condition monitoring of the wind
turbine.
Fig. 1 shows an example of the relationship between the gearbox
temperature, wind speed, and power generation of the wind tur-
bine gained from SCADA data. When the wind speed is below the
rated wind speed of the wind turbine, the temperature of the
mechanical components will raise due to the increasing wind
speed. While, for the wind speed above the rated wind speed of the
wind turbine, the temperature of the mechanical components will
be less affected, because the power generation output of the wind
turbine is constant by controlling the pitch angle of the blades. The
relationship between the gearbox oil temperature of the wind
turbine and the ambient temperature is also illustrated in Fig. 2.
The ambient temperature is also a critical factor that effects the
heat dissipation of gearbox in the wind turbine. When the ambient
temperature is in the low area, the performance of heat dissipation
of gearbox is better than that in high ambient temperature area.
392 P. Qian et al. / Renewable Energy 135 (2019) 390e398

30
Wind speed (m/s)

20

10

0
80
3000
60 2000
40 1000
20 0
Temperature (deg C) -1000 Active power (KW)

Fig. 1. A relationship between the gearbox temperature, wind speed, and power
generation of the wind turbine.

70 Fig. 3. System architecture of the wind turbine CM system based on cloud computing.
Gearbox oil temperature (deg C)

60
staffs in the job site, they can obtain real-time health information of
each wind turbine from their tablet computers or laptops via
50
wireless network, which is more efficient for maintenance service
than traditional client server based CM system, due to more
40 particular and explicit information gained.
In the data-driven model-based condition monitoring system,
30 the establishment of the accurate prediction model is the key step,
which is used to simulate the dynamic behaviours of components
20 and subsystems in the wind turbine [23]. Generally, the wind speed
and power output are selected as input signals for prediction
10 model. Then, actual output signals are compared with the signals
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 that are predicted by the model for given input signals. Differences
Climate temperature (deg C) between actual output signals and the model predicting signals
Fig. 2. A relationship between the gearbox temperature of the wind turbine and the could be caused by changes in the process, possibly due to the
ambient temperature. occurrence of faults [24].

4. Hierarchical extreme learning machine

Hence, the temperature of the gearbox is able to change in a larger
range. Conversely, the temperature of the gearbox varies in a ELM was proposed by Huang for single hidden layer feed for-
smaller range, due to the high ambient temperature. Consequently, ward neural networks (SLFNs) in 2006 [25]. Compared with the
the power generation, wind speed, and ambient temperature are traditional back propagation (BP) neutral network, ELM has ad-
used as input data for establishing data-driven model in this paper. vantages of faster training speed and better generalization abilities.
Operational SCADA data is applied to evaluate the proposed In our previous research [9], ELM algorithm based on SLFNs was
algorithm. The SCADA data used in this paper cover 12 months applied in data-driven model-based condition monitoring of the
duration. In order to reduce the amount of data gathered from the wind turbine. However, ELM algorithm based on SLFNs still face
operating wind turbines, SCADA data is usually stored at 10 min' some issues when dealing with some complicated applications.
interval although sampled at the second level. The wind turbine is Hierarchical extreme learning machine (H-ELM) was proposed by
2.5 MW with doubly-fed induction generator in the wind farm. The Tang for multi-layer feed forward neural networks (MLFNs) [26]. It
usage of operational SCADA data is an effective way to demonstrate has been proved that H-ELM has a higher prediction accuracy than
the algorithms described in this paper. traditional ELM algorithm.

3. Condition monitoring method based on cloud computing 4.1. ELM algorithm

In this paper, the system architecture of a novel wind turbine H-ELM algorithm is applied in MLFNs [26]. In order to facilitate
condition monitoring method based on cloud computing is shown the understanding of H-ELM algorithm, a brief introduction of
in Fig. 3. It consists of four parts, including data acquisition system, traditional ELM algorithm is given.
cloud computing platform, monitoring and management centre, It is assumed that SLFNs has an n
1 input vector and a m
1
and job site. The operational data of the wind turbines is collected output vector. Given N training samples, the ELM algorithm with L
by using data acquisition system in the wind farm, and then the hidden layer neurons is able to be described by the following
data are transmitted to cloud computing platform via Internet. The equation:
cloud computing platform performs the model establishment and
fault diagnosis, which aim to extract the fault features from the
 X L

wind turbine operational data. The monitoring and management
yj ¼ fL xj ¼ bi g ui ; bi ; xj ; i ¼ 1; 2; …; L; j ¼ 1; 2; …; N (1)
i¼1
centre can download detailed information of the wind turbines to
enable the optimal scheduling of maintenance tasks. For operation
 P. Qian et al. / Renewable Energy 135 (2019) 390e398
where ui is the input weight vector between the ith hidden node
and all the input nodes; bi is the output weight vector connecting
the ith hidden node and all the output nodes; bi represents the bias
of the ith hidden node; and gðxÞ. is the activation function that is
1 . u and b are randomly selected in this
represented by gðxÞ ¼ 1þe x i i
paper.
Then, Equation. (1) can be expressed as follow,
Hb ¼ Y
where b ¼ ½b1 ; b2 ; …; bL T is the output weight matrix;
T
Y ¼ ½y1 ; y2 ; …; yN  is the output matrix of ELM for all training
samples; and H is the output matrix of the hidden layer and can be
represented as:
2 3
gðu1  x1 þ b1 Þ / gðuL  x1 þ bL Þ
6 gðu  x þ b Þ / gðuL  x2 þ bL Þ 7
H¼6
4
1 2 1 7
5 (3)
« 1 «
gðu1  xN þ b1 Þ / gðuL  xN þ bL Þ
Minimizing this function is equivalent to obtaining the unique
smallest norm least-squares solution of the linear system in
Equation (2). During the whole training procedure, the values of
input weights u and the hidden layer biases b are not changed.
Then the output weights are obtained as:
b !
b ¼ Hþ Y
The matrix H þ is the generalised Moore-Penrose inverse of the
matrix H.
4.2. H-ELM algorithm
As mentioned above, H-ELM is proposed for MLFNs application.
In the data-driven model-based condition monitoring system, the
structure of H-ELM can be divided into two parts: 1) unsupervised
learning part and 2) supervised learning part.
It assumes that H-ELM model structure has M unsupervised
learning hidden layers and one supervised learning hidden layer. In
order to gain high-level sparse features of the model, the M-1 layers
unsupervised learning are performed firstly. Mathematically, the
first unsupervised learning hidden layer output with L hidden
nodes can be described as:
HM ¼ gðHM1  bÞ
where HM1 is the Mth layer unsupervised learning output; HM2 is
the M-1st layer unsupervised learning output; gðÞ. is the activation
function of ELM algorithm; and b is the output weights.
It is worth noting that each hidden layer is an independent
module in H-ELM. The function of each hidden layer is a kind of
separated feature extractor. With the increasing number of hidden
layers, the feature of the result becomes more compact. Once the
feature of the previous hidden layer is extracted, the parameters of
the hidden layer will be fixed.
4.3. H-ELM sparse autoencoder
For H-ELM sparse autoencoder, it is focus on finding a solution
about how to train unsupervised learning part. For supervised
learning part, it has already been implemented by traditional ELM
method. In order to obtain more compact and sparse features, H-
ELM sparse autoencoder is established by using l1 optimization,
which can be described as follow:
393
n o
Ob ¼ argmin H b  X 2 þ bl1 (6)
b
where X is the input data; H is the random mapping output; b is the
output weights.
The l1 optimization algorithm can be rewritten for clear
representation.
(2)
Ob ¼ pðbÞ þ qðbÞ (7)
where pðbÞ ¼ H b  X 2 , and qðbÞ ¼ bl1 are the l1 penalty terms.
By using a fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm
(FISTA), the output weight b of unsupervised learning part is ob-
tained as follow:
 
bj ¼ sr yj (8)
(
 2 )
r 1
sr ¼ argmin b  bj1  Vpðbðj  1ÞÞ þ qðbÞ
b 2 r
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1þ 1 þ 4t 2j
tjþ1 ¼
2
(4) tj  1  
yjþ1 ¼ bj þ bj  bj1
tjþ1
where j denotes the iteration times, r is Lipschitz constant.
5. Data compression
Security concern and cost reduction are two main reasons for
carrying out data compression before the data is uploaded to the
cloud computing platform. The cloud computing platform usually
suffers a data security concerns, which will cause cyber-attacks
against the wind power generation system. Cyber-attacks on the
wind farm condition monitoring and energy management system
may cause widespread disruption in the electric power system, due
to increasing integration of the wind power generation system.
Furthermore, the cost of using cloud computing platform is
generally determined by the quantity of data uploaded. From the
(5) survey on four cloud computing platforms, including Amazon,
Microsoft, Alibaba Cloud, and Thingspeak, the service charge of
above mentioned cloud computing platforms is directly propor-
tional to the data quantity. Thus reducing data upload quantity
contributes to decrease the costs of condition monitoring system
based on the cloud computing.
Considering the above mentioned issues, a novel encrypted and
low data upload H-ELM (ELDUH-ELM) condition monitoring
method based on cloud computing is proposed as shown in Fig. 4.
The first hidden layer output H1 is calculated and compressed
before uploading to the cloud computing platform. From Equation
(1), it can be seen that it is almost impossible to obtain the pa-
rameters u b and x from the first hidden layer output H1 , which
means that the whole H-ELM structure parameters can't be mined
in the cloud computing platform. This characteristic is beneficial to
enhance the data security ability of condition monitoring system
based on cloud computing. In the cloud computing platform, the
compressed H1 is reconstructed and trained. Then, actual output
data gained from the wind turbine are then compared to the pre-
diction data obtained from trained H-ELM for the corresponding
input data. Finally, the residual signal is used to diagnose the
394 P. Qian et al. / Renewable Energy 135 (2019) 390e398
Calculate H1
- H-ELM
Prediction Signal
Residual Signal
+
Fig. 4. The framework of ELDUH-ELM condition monitoring method combined with cloud computing.
occurrence of faults.
In this paper, CS method is adopted to compress the first hidden
layer output H1 . The calculation amount of the data compression
process is much higher than the process of the data decompression
in traditional compression method. While CS method has an
opposite character, data compression process has much less
calculation amount than the process of the data reconstruction
[27]. This feature makes CS method very suitable to be applied in
the cloud computing field, because we hope to achieve complicated
calculation process in the cloud computing platform.
CS method for data acquisition can be represented as
y ¼ Fx
x is a n
1 vector of the original data; F is a m
n measurement
matrix, and the value of m is far less then n. Hence, the output y is a
m
1 vector, so the number of processed data y is far fewer than
that of the original data x, which makes CS method to achieve the
signal processing work with very fewer resource requirements.
In CS theory, the original data x is needed to be converted to
sparse representation q. Therefore, Equation (10) can be described
as follow:
x ¼ Jq
Substituting (10) into (9) gives
y ¼ FJq ¼ Aq
where A ¼ FJ is the sensing matrix.
For data reconstruction algorithm, minimum L1 norm method is
adopted in Equation (12).
minx1 s:t: Fx  y2  ε
To measure the data compression rate, the data compression
ratio is normally defined as the ratio between the uncompressed
size and compressed size.
6. Case study
In this paper, it is focused on gearbox faults monitoring, because
the gearbox system is the major contributor to a wind turbine's
downtime. The gearbox oil temperature and gearbox bearing
Cloud Computing
Platform
Compress H1
Reconstruct H1
H1
Actual Signal
temperature are selected to monitor the condition of the gearbox.
Generally, the gearbox of the wind turbine adopts oil cooling sys-
tem to cool the gearbox, and the oil temperature is very close to the
gear temperature. In order to validate the proposed method shown
in Fig. 3, the SCADA data collected from an operational wind farm is
processed by using the cloud computing platform ThingSpeak.
ThingSpeak is an open source Internet of Things (IoT) application
that integrates numerical computing on the cloud. The wind tur-
bine operational data is uploaded to the cloud via Internet. Then,
the model-based condition monitoring method is applied on the
cloud computing platform. Finally, the operational condition of the
wind turbine can be easily obtained by the tablet computer and
(9) laptop.
6.1. Parameter selection for H-ELM
As discussed in Section II, the parameter selection will affect the
accuracy of the data-driven prediction model. In order to demon-
strate the impact of the parameter selection, a comparative analysis
is provided. In the first scenario, 3 input parameters, the power
generation of the wind turbine, ambient temperature, and wind
speed are selected as input signals for prediction model; While in
(10) the second scenario, only the power generation of the wind turbine,
and wind speed are used as input signals for H-ELM algorithm. The
prediction models are used to predict the actual gearbox bearing
temperature in the wind turbine. The root mean square error
(11)
(RMSE) values is a widely used method to measure the how well
the prediction models explain the actual data. The RMSE values for
3 inputs scenario (the power generation of the wind turbine,
ambient temperature, and wind speed) and 2 inputs scenario
(power generation of the wind turbine and wind speed) are 0.0555
(12) and 0.0579 respectively. This indicates that the data-driven pre-
diction model trained by 3 inputs is more accurate than the model
trained by 2 inputs. Therefore, the models explored in following
case studies are based on 3 input parameters.
6.2. CASE 1: condition monitoring based on the gearbox oil
temperature
In order to investigate whether the proposed model is able to
detect faults due to the onset of gearbox, the SCADA data acquired
immediately before the occurrence of the faults have been
 P. Qian et al. / Renewable Energy 135 (2019) 390e398 395

compared with the corresponding output predicted by the refer- 80

ence turbine models, given wind speed, power generation, and

Actual temperature (deg C)

climate temperature as the input. The first study case is that the
proposed method is applied to condition monitoring of the gearbox 70
oil temperature. The actual gearbox oil temperature data collected
from real wind turbine is compared to the H-ELM prediction model 60
output to detect the gearbox fault happened in the wind turbine.
The data of power generation of the wind turbine, ambient tem-
perature, and wind speed from a healthy wind turbine is selected as 50
the training dataset to obtain the parameters of H-ELM prediction
model. In this case, gearbox condition monitoring is implemented
while the data compression ratio is 4, which means that the size of
40
the compressed first hidden layer output H1 is reduced to 25% of
that before compressed sensing. Fig. 5 illustrates the wind speed for 30
the wind turbine in the wind farm within 270 h, and corresponding 1400 1430 1460 1490 1520 1550 1580 1610 1640 1670
power generation output of the wind turbine is shown in Fig. 6. In Time (hours)
this case study, the method illustrated in Fig. 4 is applied. Fig. 7
shows the actual temperature of the gearbox oil obtained from Fig. 7. The actual temperature of the gearbox oil obtained from the SCADA data.
the SCADA data for the wind turbine that has a gearbox fault. Fig. 8
illustrates the predicted gearbox oil temperature gained from the
ELDUH-ELM model. Fig. 9 illustrates the residual signal of the 80

Predicted temperature (deg C)

gearbox oil temperature that is the difference between the actual
gearbox oil temperature and predicted gearbox oil temperature. It 70
can be seen that the predicted gearbox oil temperature deviates
from the actual gearbox oil temperature obtained from the SCADA
system at 1530 h indicating the onset of a fault. 60

50
25
40
20
Wind speed (m/s)

30
15 1400 1430 1460 1490 1520 1550 1580 1610 1640 1670
Time (hours)
10 Fig. 8. The predicted temperature of the gearbox oil gained from the ELDUH-ELM
model.

5
15
0
1400 1430 1460 1490 1520 1550 1580 1610 1640 1670
Time (hours) 10
Error (deg C)

Fig. 5. The actual wind speed of the wind turbine.

5
3000
Power generation (Kw)

2500
0
2000

1500 1400 1430 1460 1490 1520 1550 1580 1610 1640 1670
Time (hours)
1000
Fig. 9. The residual temperature of the gearbox oil.

500
The RMSE values for the traditional ELM and H-ELM models are
0 0.0738 and 0.0713 respectively, which indicates that the H-ELM
1400 1430 1460 1490 1520 1550 1580 1610 1640 1670 model has higher accuracy than traditional ELM model.
Time (hours) The data compression ratio of the first hidden layer output H1
affects the accuracy of the prediction model. Fig. 10 illustrates the
Fig. 6. The actual power generation of the wind turbine. accuracy of the proposed method in terms of the data compression
396 P. Qian et al. / Renewable Energy 135 (2019) 390e398

0.1 3000

Power generation (Kw)

0.095 2500

0.09 2000
RMSE

0.085 1500

0.08 1000

0.075 500

0.07 0
1 8/7 4/3 8/5 2 8/3 4 8 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050 2070
Data compression ratio Time (hours)
Fig. 12. The actual power generation of the wind turbine.
Fig. 10. Accuracy of the proposed method in terms of the data compression ratio.

ratio in the condition monitoring of gearbox oil temperature. The 90

Actual temperature (deg C)

accuracy of the prediction model decreases while the data
80
compression ratio increases. For original first hidden layer output
H1 , the RMSE value of prediction model is 0.0713. While the data
70
compression ratio reaches 8, the RMSE value of prediction model is
0.0958. It means that the accuracy of prediction model doesn't 60
decrease a lot. Hence, the proposed ELDUH-ELM method has a good
fit with considerably reduced data upload quantity in the condition 50
monitoring of the gearbox oil temperature.
40
6.3. CASE 2: condition monitoring based on the gearbox bearing
temperature
30
1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050 2070
Time (hours)
Apart from the fault of the gearbox oil, there is another case of
gearbox bearing fault to validate the proposed method. The study Fig. 13. The actual temperature of the gearbox bearing obtained from the SCADA data.
case is operated under the condition of the data compression ratio
2. It means that the size of the compressed first hidden layer output
H1 is reduce to 50% of that before compressed sensing. Fig. 11 il- 90
Temperature predicted (deg C)

lustrates the wind speed for the wind turbine in the wind farm
within 120 h, and corresponding power generation output of the 80
wind turbine is shown in Fig. 12. Fig. 13 shows the actual temper-
ature of the gearbox bearing obtained from the SCADA data for the 70
wind turbine that has a gearbox bearing fault. Fig. 14 illustrates the
predicted gearbox bearing temperature gained from the ELDUH- 60
ELM model. Fig. 15 illustrates the residual signal of the gearbox
bearing temperature that is the difference between the actual 50
gearbox bearing temperature and predicted gearbox bearing tem-
perature. It can be seen that the predicted gearbox bearing 40

30
25 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050 2070
Time (hours)
20 Fig. 14. The predicted temperature of the gearbox bearing gained from the ELDUH-
Wind speed (m/s)

ELM model.

15
temperature deviates from the actual gearbox bearing temperature
10 obtained from the SCADA system at 1990 h indicating the onset of a
fault.
The RMSE values for the traditional ELM and H-ELM models are
5 0.0587 and 0.0555 respectively. From checking the alarm log of the
wind turbine SCADA data system, it was found that the rising of
0 temperatures of both the gearbox oil and the gearbox bearing were
1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050 2070 caused by the faults happened in the gearbox cooling system.
Time (hours) Fig. 16 illustrates the accuracy of the proposed method in terms
of the data compression ratio in the condition monitoring of
Fig. 11. The actual wind speed of the wind turbine.
 P. Qian et al. / Renewable Energy 135 (2019) 390e398 397

input parameters have the best prediction accuracy.

10
7. Conclusions and future work
Error (deg C)

This paper has presented a novel wind turbine condition

5 monitoring method based on cloud computing. The SCADA data,
obtained from a commercial wind farm, have been used to validate
the effectiveness of the proposed method. Two case studies were
0 carried out to demonstrate the gearbox condition monitoring using
gearbox oil temperature and bearing temperature as the prediction
model output separately. From the residual signal between the
predicted data and actual data obtained from SCADA data, the de-
-5 viation of the residual signal provide an early warning of the failure.
1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050 2070 The results show that H-ELM provides higher prediction accuracy
Time (hours) than traditional ELM algorithm. The RMSE values of H-ELM models
Fig. 15. The residual temperature of the gearbox bearing. are reduced about 5% compared to traditional ELM algorithm in
both case studies.
In order to reduce data upload quantity to the cloud computing
platform, the first hidden layer output H1 is compressed by CS and
uploaded to the cloud platform. Then, the first hidden layer output
0.11 H1 is reconstructed and applied in the prediction model. The results
0.1 show that the data compression and reconstruction process will
not significantly affect the prediction model accuracy. Hence, the
RMSE

0.09 uploaded data volume enables to reduce to 12.5% compared with

original data size before compression. Because of only uploading
0.08 the compressed first hidden layer output H1 to the cloud computing
platform, the parameters of model and original input data can't be
0.07 mined in the cloud computing platform, which enhances data se-
0.06 curity ability of condition monitoring system based on cloud
computing.
0.05 Future work will consider to implement the online real time
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 function of the proposed wind turbine condition monitoring
Data compression ratio method based on cloud computing; and develop an online real time
condition-monitoring device based on the proposed method.
Fig. 16. Accuracy of the proposed method in terms of the data compression ratio.

gearbox bearing temperature. The accuracy of the prediction model
decreases with the data compression ratio raise. For original first
hidden layer output H1 , the RMSE value of prediction model is
0.0555. While the data compression ratio reaches 8, the RMSE value
of prediction model is 0.1074. Hence, the proposed ELDUH-ELM
method has a good fit with considerably reduced data upload
quantity in the condition monitoring of the gearbox bearing tem-
perature. The faults occurring in the gearbox can be found from an
investigation of the SCADA data and from the alarm logs that record
fault information, including fault type, fault time and subsequent
solutions.
The comparison results of the studies carried out in this paper
are shown in Table 1. It can be seen that the prediction model
trained by three input parameters has a smaller RMSE value than
that trained by two input parameters, which indicates that it has
better prediction accuracy. H-ELM based prediction models have
smaller RMSE values than ELM based prediction models in both
case studies. In conclusion, H-ELM based models trained by three
Table 1
Comparison results in this paper.
Case Comparison object
Comparison of parameter Two inputs
selection Three inputs
Comparison between ELM ELM
and H-ELM in case 1 H-ELM
Comparison between ELM ELM
and H-ELM in case 2 H-ELM
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support
from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
51579222, 51879233 and 51120195001), the international collabo-
ration and exchange program from the NSFC-RCUK/EPSRC (Grant
No. 51761135011), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (No. 2017XZZX001-02A).
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