A Summary of the Paper “Tool Health Monitoring using

Airborne Acoustic Emission and a PSO-optimized Neural Network”

The paper attempts to investigate the prediction of the tool health by using machine learning. The
experimentation described in the paper makes use of a particular type of machine learning technique
known as the Neural Network. The Neural Network result is further optimized by an optimization
algorithm known as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). In the end, the results of both the PSO-Optimized
and Non-PSO Optimized Neural Network are compared.

The main objective of the study is to train the machine to predict the tool health of a CNC machine using
neural network optimized by PSO. During a turning operation, the tool mounted in the CNC machine emits
two kinds of acoustic emission i.e. Structure-borne acoustic emission and airborne acoustic emission. The
structure-borne acoustic emission ranges from 50 kHz to 2 MHz while the air-borne acoustic emission is
between 2 KHz to 4 KHz. The structure-borne emission is out of the scope of this paper while the research
paper extensively deals with the data generated by the airborne acoustic emission.

The experimentation setup employs a contactless microphone in order to collect the airborne acoustic
data of High Speed Steel (HSS) tool mounted in the CNC lathe machine. Several tests were undertaken
having new, used and worn-out tools. During multiple test cycles, the RPM is set to 1500 with a feed rate
of 200 millimeters per second having a depth of cut of 0.5 millimeters. Multiple test data was gathered
and was divided into three datasets. One dataset was used for training the neural network, second dataset
was used for the validation of the results from the neural network while the third dataset was used for
further conclusive testing.

The Root Mean Square (RMS) of the acoustic data, feed rate, RPM and depth of cut are then fed into the
input neurons for processing. Once the neural network comes up with a result, it is then compared with
the actual result. The difference in the result from the neural network and the actual result is minimized
by a method called back propagation. The margin of error is then reduced with each iteration of back
propagation of neural network and the percentage of error between the result from the neural network
and the actual result is noted.

Similarly, the same scheme of neural network is employed this time using PSO-Optimized algorithm for
back propagation. After several iterations, the percentage of error between the result from the PSO-
Optimized neural network and the actual result is noted.

The experimental setting consists of 4 input neurons (corresponding to the number of inputs). The hidden
layer consists of 10 neurons while the output layer has 3 neurons (corresponding to the number of
possible results i.e. new tool, old tool and worn-out tool).

In conclusion, the paper draws a comparison between the results collected from PSO-Optimized back
propagation neural network and non PSO-Optimized (simple) back propagation neural network. With the
experimentation, it is evident that the average accuracy of the simple back propagation neural network is
49.24% while the average accuracy of the PSO-Optimized back propagation neural network is 68.94%.

By Zamil Mustafa Shah

MSME-17