172 A. Bustos et al.

3. Subtract the mean from the input signal to get the first IMF candidate c1(t), as Eq. 6,
and check if it meets the IMF conditions. If not, take, repeat steps 1–3 with c1(t) as
input signal until it does.

c1 ðtÞ ¼ xðtÞ  m 1 ðtÞ ð6Þ

4. Calculate the residue as Eq. 7.

r1 ðtÞ ¼ xðtÞ  c1 ðtÞ ð7Þ

5. Use the residue as new input signal and repeat steps 1–5 until no more IMF can be
extracted from that input signal, following the procedure established by Eqs. 8 and 9.

ck ðtÞ ¼ rk1 ðtÞ  mk ðtÞ ð8Þ

rk ðtÞ ¼ rk1 ðtÞ  ck ðtÞ ðr0 ðtÞ ¼ xðtÞÞ ð9Þ

At the end, the input signal x(t) is decomposed into the addition of a set of NE
components and the residue, as stated in Eq. 10.

X
NE
xðtÞ ¼ ci ðtÞ þ rN ðtÞ ð10Þ
i¼1

Once the IMF are obtained, the average PSD and spectral power of IMF are
computed in the two studied operating states by applying Eqs. (2) and (3).

3 Measurement System

The previous techniques are applied to vibration signals taken from a commercial high-
speed train in regular operation. This train is able to achieve speeds above 300 km/h
and follows an extensive maintenance program. In order to get a sufficient number of
vibration measurements and a uniform behavior, a 150 km – length sector of high-
speed line in which the train travels at a constant speed of 270 km/h is selected.
The measurement system is composed by two main blocks. The first one comprises
the vibration measuring, data acquisition and data transmission systems and is located
aboard the train. The second block comprises the recording system and consist of a
database located at the MAQLAB Laboratory in the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
The diagram of the measurement system is shown in Fig. 1.
The on-board measurement system includes a DC power supply unit, two IMx-R
units for data acquisition, an UMTS (3G) router for data transmission, a speed sensor
and three uniaxial accelerometers.
The speed sensor and the accelerometers are installed in the axle box of the
highlighted axle in Fig. 1. Accelerometers are placed on the axle box cover in the three
directions of space (longitudinal, axial and vertical). However, the speed sensor is
embedded inside the axle box (see Fig. 2).
 Monitoring of a High-Speed Train Bogie Using the EMD Technique 173

Fig. 1. Diagram of the measurement system.

The equipment is set up to acquire acceleration signals in a speed range between 75

and 2000 rpm, approximately between 13 km/h and 346 km/h. Acceleration mea-
surements are acquired during 3.2 s at a sampling rate of 5120 Hz, which results in
16384 data points per measurement. Subsequently, vibration signals are transmitted
and recorded in the remote database.

Fig. 2. Location of the longitudinal, axial and vertical accelerometers (highlighted with a circle)
and speed sensor (highlighted with a square) after their installation in the axle box.

Given the importance of detecting possible faults in rolling bearings, the values of
the bearing fault frequencies at the travel speed of the analyzed high-speed line sector
are calculated in Table 1.
174 A. Bustos et al.

Table 1. Bearing characteristic frequencies at 270 km/h.

Axle or bearing parameter and faults Characteristic frequency (Hz)
Axle rotation frequency (Fs) 26.48
Ball pass frequency inner race (BPFI) 335.87
Ball pass frequency outer race (BPFO) 273.17
Ball spin frequency (BSF) 125.36
Fundamental train frequency (FTF) 11.89

4 Results

This section summarizes the results obtained from the application of the methods
exposed above to the vibration signals acquired by the on-board measurement system.
Due to the lack of space, we will only focus on the vertical vibration signals recorded
before and after the maintenance operation, which consisted of a wheel reprofiling. The
y-axis of the figures are referenced to the full scale of the before maintenance operating
state because of confidentiality reasons of the companies involved in this project.
Figure 3 shows the power density spectrum before and after the maintenance
intervention. There are two frequency bands of high activity in both spectra: the first
one between 0 Hz and 1000 Hz, which contains the main peaks of the spectrum, and
the second one between 1900 Hz and 2500 Hz.

Fig. 3. Average spectra before (left) and after (right) the maintenance operation.

By comparing both spectra, it is clearly visible a great reduction in the amplitude of

the 1900–2500 Hz frequency band. Band that matches the wheel corrugation frequency
range established by some authors (Connolly et al. 2015).
There are also several frequency components that deserve special attention. The
first one is located at, approximately, 125 Hz and coincides with the ball spin fre-
quency or BSF of the bearing. This frequency component undergoes an amplitude
reduction of around 45%. It is also visible the fifth harmonic of the BSF, placed at
625 Hz. The second interesting frequency component coincides with the ball pass
 Monitoring of a High-Speed Train Bogie Using the EMD Technique 175

frequency outer race or BPFO and is located at 275 Hz. The last interesting peak is
located at 350 Hz and identified as fw in Fig. 3, as it coincides with the first vibration
mode of the wheel. This component is only visible in the average spectrum before the
maintenance operation.
Later, vibration signals are decomposed using the EMD technique and IMF are
obtained. Next, the average spectra of these IMF are computed and displayed in the
graphs of Fig. 4. For better understanding, the average PSD of each IMF has been
plotted in a different color.
The general appearance of the average spectra of the IMF is similar to the PSD
exposed above. It exist a frequency region of high components in the 0–1000 Hz band
which embraces the components located around 125 Hz and 275 Hz; and there is also
other active zone above 1900 Hz.
By comparing the spectra of Fig. 4, we can see a noteworthy reduction of the
amplitude of the IMF(1), IMF(4) and IMF(5) after the maintenance task was per-
formed. The amplitude reduction of the main frequency component of IMF(5) is
particularly significant, as this component located at the BSF frequency experiences a
33% amplitude reduction. IMF(1) groups all the components in the high frequency
band, especially the wheel corrugation frequency range (Connolly et al. 2015). The big
amplitude reduction after the wheels intervention seems to confirm a relation between
IMF(1) and the wheel corrugation phenomenon.

Fig. 4. The average PSD of IMF before (a) and after maintenance (b).
176 A. Bustos et al.

Fig. 5. Average spectral power values of signal and IMF before (filled bars) and after (blank
bars) maintenance operation.

On the other hand, it is visible an increase in the amplitude of the main peak of IMF
(2), which coincides with the five multiplier of the BSF. However, the rest of the
frequency components of this IMF remains the same level. The vibration amplitude of
the other two IMF keeps a similar amplitude level after the maintenance operation.
Finally, the power of average PSD and IMF spectra are computed and plotted in the
bar chart of Fig. 5. Original signal power is plotted in black and the IMF power follows
the same color scheme as above. Bar chart shows a reduction in the signal power of
14% after the maintenance operation. What concerns the IMF, IMF(1), IMF(4), IMF(5)
and IMF(6) undergo a power reduction after maintenance, particularly in IMF(1) and
IMF(5) with reductions of 30% and 24%, respectively. IMF(2) suffers a power increase
of 16%, and the IMF(3) keeps the same power level (+0.76%).

5 Conclusions

This work establishes a set of parameters based on classical signal processing tech-
niques for the condition identification of a high-speed train bogie. More specifically,
vibration signals have been recorded before and after a maintenance operation and
analyzed using PSD and EMD-based techniques.
Obtained results show a significant amplitude reduction in the high frequency band
(1900–2500 Hz) of the spectra and in the frequency components located at 125 Hz and
275 Hz. This frequency band coincides with the wheel corrugation frequency region
and the two main peaks match specific bearing faults. Signal power is reduced a 14%
after the maintenance task.
The analysis of the spectra of the IMF shows significant reductions of amplitude
levels in IMF(1), IMF(4) and IMF(5). This phenomenon is confirmed by the compu-
tation of spectral powers of each IMF, which great reduction of power level in IMF(1)
and IMF(5), and a moderate increase in IMF(2). In addition, it could be establish a
connection between the IMF(1) and the wheel corrugation.
 Monitoring of a High-Speed Train Bogie Using the EMD Technique 177

In essence, applied methods lead to interesting results about the condition of the
bogie after a maintenance operation and allow to set signal power, IMF(1) power and
IMF(5) power as indicators of the operating condition of the bogie.

Acknowledgements. This work is supported by the Spanish Government through the MAQ-
STATUS DPI2015-69325-C2-1-R project. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the help of
the participating companies (Renfe, Alstom Spain, SKF Spain and Dano-Rail - Danobatgroup
Railway).

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 Comparison of Signal Processing Techniques
for Condition Monitoring Based on Artificial
Neural Networks

M. Tiboni(&), G. Incerti, C. Remino, and M. Lancini

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department,

Università degli Studi di Brescia, via Branze 38, 25123 Brescia, Italy
monica.tiboni@unibs.it

Abstract. The paper presents the results of a study aimed to compare different
signal processing techniques for the condition monitoring of a mechanical
system for indexing motion. Artificial feed-forward neural networks (ANN) are
used as classifiers. The mechanical system can work in different conditions
(variable loads and velocities, lubricant oil with different viscosity) and the
ANN identifies the working condition. The monitored variable is the accelera-
tion signal of the rotating table, opportunely pre-processed. The signal pro-
cessing techniques compared are: Power Spectral Density (PSD), Fast Fourier
Transform (FFT), Wavelet, Amplitude Probability Density Function (PDF),
Higher Order Spectra (HOS).

Keywords: Condition monitoring
Vibrations
Signal processing

Neural networks

1 Introduction

Industry has an ever increasing need of pro-active maintenance [1], because it can
detect machine faults before they occur. This maintenance method is cost effective
since machines are stopped only when anomalous behaviors are detected. Pro-active
maintenance, however, requires a continuous monitoring of the machine by sensors
able to measure quantities related to its condition. In addition, online monitoring is
usually coupled with expert systems, whose task is to classify features extracted by the
signals in order to detect developing faults. The use of expert systems is aimed at
automating the analysis, so that it not only can be done rapidly, but also does not
require skilled personnel, a resource which is expensive and not always available.
Online monitoring coupled with expert systems is expensive as well, but it guarantee
that faults are promptly detected, therefore keeping the downtime to a minimum.
Expert systems are extensively used for fault diagnosis and prognosis of mechanical
equipment, from single devices (for example roller bearings [2–4] or gearboxes [5]) to
specific machines (for example gas or wind turbines [6]) or machines in general [7–9].
The experimental signals measured on the system must be treated in order to obtain
information useful for the classification of the operating status of the monitored
machinery. Different pre-processing techniques can be used (FFT, PSD, Wavelet, PDF,

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

A. Fernandez Del Rincon et al. (Eds.): CMMNO 2018, ACM 15, pp. 179–188, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11220-2_19
180 M. Tiboni et al.

HOS and others) and many applications have been performed with these techniques
[10]. The main objective of the present work is to compare the influence of these
different techniques on the classification results. The case of study is the condition
monitoring, based on ANN as classifier, of an industrial cam mechanism for rotary
tables of Flexible Assembly Systems (FAS). The authors also want to find out if a
method provides better results than the others for the system under consideration.

2 Condition Monitoring Approach

In the presented work the behavior of a mechanical cam system is monitored by

detecting the acceleration measured on the rotating table and the behavior interpretation
function is carried out by an artificial neural network (ANN), in particular a Multi-
Layer Perceptron (MLP) network with one level of hidden neurons. The considered
approach is based on a supervised learning of the ANN using experimental data to
identify different system states according to specific circumstances, as in Refs. [3–5, 8].
In Fig. 1a schematic representation of the adopted monitoring approach is provided. In
the training phase the rotating table acceleration is acquired in different working
conditions (n), repeating the acquisition a defined number of times (m), collecting
(n  m) examples, divided in training, validation and test examples.

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the adopted condition monitoring approach.

X represents the matrix containing in the rows the examples. The acquisitions are
done with a chosen sampling frequency (f) for a fixed time (T). The number of columns
of X is (f  T). ZE represents the matrix of the effective state of the system for each
example. The signals acquired in the time domain are not entered directly in the ANN,
but must be pre-processed in order to give it a consistent information. Y is the matrix of
the features extracted from the examples with the pre-processing technique adopted.
The ANN is trained identifying the weights matrix (W) with the back-propagation
algorithm by comparing the state of the system predicted (ZP) with the effective one
(ZE). Once the training has been completed successfully, the network can be used to
predict the status of the system (z) in its current operation (monitoring phase) from the
vector of the acceleration acquired on the rotating table (x).
 Comparison of Signal Processing Techniques for Condition Monitoring 181

The comparison of the classification performances obtained by applying different

pre-processing techniques is the focus of the work. The following paragraph is dedi-
cated to a synthetic descriptions of the signal treatment methods used.

3 Signal Pre-processing Methods

To investigate the sensitivity of the classification to the signal processing technique

adopted the results obtained using different techniques have been compared. The
methodologies considered are: Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), Power Spectral Density
(PSD), Higher Order Spectra (HOS) and Density Probability of Amplitude (DPA). The
first two are the methods of analysis of the vibration signals most used in the technical
field, to identify the presence in the signal of frequency components attributable to
specific phenomena. First and second-order statistics provide widely used methods of
signal analysis, but such methods are sufficient only to describe linear or Gaussian
processes. All the classical statistical indicators can be used to characterize normal dis-
tributions and in a first approximation many processes can be considered as Gaussians. In
most natural phenomena a treatment such as the previous one may not be sufficient to
clearly define the system: higher-order statistical indicators can be used for this purpose
(Higher Order Spectra, HOS), which allow to extract further information from the signal
[10]. In the time domain the HOS of the third order is called bispectrum and corresponds
to the third moment (skewness) of the signal: it can identify non-symmetries and non-
linearity. Many times the bispectrum is normalized: the bicoherence is the most used
method to normalize the bispectrum and quantitatively measures the fraction of power of
the signal that would be due to the quadratic interaction of two components in frequency
and it is in relation to the linearity of the signal. It is represented by a function b(f1, f2) and
when the frequencies f1 and f2 change it is possible to create a three-dimensional graphic
representation. The bicoherence operator releases a square matrix at the output. In order to
use this indicator as input to the chosen feed-forward ANN it is necessary to transform it
in a vector, for example by taking the different columns or the different rows in suc-
cession. This operation causes the loss of the three-dimensional character of the operator,
but on the contrary makes it possible to insert the data into the ANN. A further method of
pre-processing is the Amplitude Probability Density Function (PDF), applied to the
accelerations. This operator indicates the probability of finding a certain amplitude of the
signal in the time domain. The discrete Wavelet transform can be used to clean up from
the noise the acceleration signals, previously phased in the time domain.

4 Experimental Device

The experimental set-up and a scheme of the acquisition system are shown in Fig. 2.
An indexing devices is moved by an inverter-controlled tri-phase motor trough a speed
reducer. Indexing devices allow to study various cinematic conditions, because their
periodic motion has positive and negative accelerations, followed by rest periods. The
signal used to extract the condition of the device was the acceleration measured at the
end of the bar moved by the indexing mechanism.