Bearing fault detection based on hybrid ensemble detector and empirical mode decomposition

Aiming at more efficient fault diagnosis, this research work presents an integrated anomaly detection approach for seeded bearing faults. Vibration signals from normal bearings and bearings with three different fault locations, as well as different fault sizes and loading conditions are examined. The Empirical Mode Decomposition and the Hilbert Huang transform are employed for the extraction of a compact feature set. Then, a hybrid ensemble detector is trained using data coming only from the normal bearings and it is successfully applied for the detection of any deviation from the normal condition. The results prove the potential use of the proposed scheme as a first stage of an alarm signalling system for the detection of bearing faults irrespective of their loading condition. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.