Discriminant Feature Extraction of Motor Current
Signal Analysis and Vibration For Centrifugal Pump
Fault Detection
Asma’ul Husna Katherin Indriawati
Department Engineering Physics Department Engineering Physics
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember
Surabaya, Indonesia Surabaya, Indonesia
husnaasmaa@gmail.com katherin@ep.its.ac.id
Abstract— The monitoring condition of the centrifugal pump is
closely related to fault detection and diagnosis. It usually uses
the vibration signals. However, under certain conditions it is not
possible to install the accelerometer on the machine due to
certain conditions and environments. Current signals can be
used to replace vibration signals. This method is called motor
current signature analysis (MCSA). The raw signal of the
current and current spectrum in frequency domain can be used
for fault detection. The statistical features of the current raw
signal contain information on the signal characteristics.
However, these raw features are not sensitive enough to weak
fault symptoms or are not suitable for severe faults, thus can
affect fault detection and classification accuracy. To overcome
this problem, discriminant feature extraction is carried out for
fault detection in centrifugal pumps (CP). Discriminant features
are divided into four phases. In the first phase, a healthy pump
signal is selected. In the second phase, the healthy condition
signal is cross-correlated with the centrifugal pump current
signal in several fault classes and the result of the extraction
from the cross correlation is a new feature set. In the third
phase, the raw statistical features in the time, frequency and
time-frequency domains are extracted from both healthy
current signals and CP current signals of different classes. In the
last phase, wavelet packet transform (WPT) energy is extracted
from the current signals. The result of these features will be
combined into a discriminant feature pool. The pool
discriminant feature will be used as input in making a classifier
for the centrifugal pump fault detection system. This study also
used motor bearing speed data for comparison. The main topic
of this paper is to design a fault detection system for centrifugal
pumps using current signals. Based on the performance test
using precision, error rate, and recall. The motor bearing speed
vibration signal has better performance than the CP fault
detection classification with the current signal. However, there
is only a slight difference between the two. From this research,
the current signal and motor bearing speed vibration signal can
detect fault to the centrifugal pump well.
Keywords— Centrifugal Pump, Fault Detection, MCSA,
Classifier, Vibration.
I. INTRODUCTION
Currently, industrial systems require more reliable control
strategies, availability, and safety to produce high-quality
products. So far, these benefits have been obtained through
the implementation of condition monitoring, which currently
has significantly expanded the application of new theories,
Bambang L. Widjiantoro
Department Engineering Physics
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember
Surabaya, Indonesia
blelono@ep.its.ac.id
techniques, tools, and methods. The pump is one of the most
important components in the industry, where 27% of
electricity usage is allocated to pumps, of which the majority
are centrifugal pumps [1]. With simple construction, reliable
performance, and low cost, centrifugal pumps have the
highest percentage of pump types used in the industry [2].
However, centrifugal pumps also have unexpected failure
consequences, including expensive repair costs, long
downtime. These two things make productivity decline and
will reduce industry profits. In addition, it can lead to a
decrease in the safety of operating staff [3]. Therefore, the
industrial maintenance department must always ensure the
efficiency and reliability of pump operations, namely by
means of predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance is
useful for maximizing pump working time and reducing
higher maintenance costs. One of the strategies used in
predictive maintenance is a fault diagnosis system [4].
Damage or faults that exist in centrifugal pumps are
divided into two, namely mechanical damage and hydraulic
damage caused by fluid flow [5]. Chittora, S. M. in his
research showed that 39% of pump failures occurred due to
mechanical seal damage [6]. To avoid centrifugal pump
failure, early detection of mechanical seal damage is
essential. Therefore, this study considers the mechanical
damage of the seal.
Mechanical fault or failure that occurs in centrifugal
pumps can be seen from abnormal vibrations. Therefore,
vibration is usually used for the diagnosis of mechanical
faults [7]. In the previous study, many signal processing
approaches in time, frequency, and time-frequency domains
have been developed to extract fault features that match raw
vibration signals for detecting mechanical fault. Mechanical
damage to the centrifugal pump results in variations in the
amplitude and distribution of the vibration signal [8].
Delgado et al in their study used statistical features in the time
domain to capture variations in the vibration signal [9].
However, statistical features in the time domain are not
sensitive to changes in the fault severity and result in fewer
discriminatory features. The frequency spectrum is more
sensitive to a fault because undetected changes will produce
the appropriate spectrum line of the frequency spectrum [3].
However, in certain conditions such as insufficient space
or difficulty in installing vibration sensors and different
environmental conditions such as underwater pumps with a
depth of more than 100 meters and pumps in nuclear power
plants, it becomes a problem in the monitoring process. Thus,
it is necessary to use other variable measurement data to use
as the monitoring variable. In research [10], the current signal
can replace vibration signal for monitoring processes for
pumps and other machines. In addition, the monitoring
process using current has the advantage that it is more cost-
effective because it does not require the installation of
additional sensors that adds to the cost.
Motor current signature analysis (MCSA) is a method of
monitoring engine conditions using current signals. MCSA
analyses the time-frequency decomposition of the current
signals. MCSA is a simple, low-cost, and non-invasive
monitoring method. Several previous studies have conducted
research on fault diagnosis on centrifugal pumps using motor
current signals. Rapur et al have researched fault diagnosis of
mechanical damage and hydraulic damage using motor
currents and vibrations. It performs spectral analysis in time
and frequency domains and uses MSVM as a classifier The
same thing was also done by Amiya et all, they performed
fault detection on impeller damage with vibration signals and
motor current signature analysis (MCSA) [10]. Parasuram P.
Harihara et all also conducted a fault diagnosis study of
centrifugal pump failures using motor currents [11]. Tian et
all investigated the fault to the centrifugal pump impeller by
using a motor current signal. They use a deterministic non-
linear feature analysis approach [12].
Considering the previous studies that have been
presented, it can be seen that signal pre-processing and
discriminant feature extraction are important stages in fault
diagnosis. Discriminant features help machine learning
classifiers in fault diagnosis to classify data according to its
class effectively. Correlation operation has been used in
classification in previous studies, namely on brain-computer
interface oriented signals for the classification of human brain
diseases such as EMG and EEG with an accuracy of 100%
[13] [14] [15]. In another study, it has been performed
centrifugal pump fault detection by pre-processing the signal
using cross-correlation and vibration signal correlation
coefficient with an accuracy of 98.4% [3]. Apart from the
ability of cross-correlation features and good discriminant
feature capabilities as well as low and inexpensive
computational load. To the best of our knowledge so far, the
pre-processing of the current signal cross-correlation in the
time domain for centrifugal pump fault diagnosis has not
been reported so far. As previously explained, the current
signal can replace the vibration signal for fault detection
because it is easy, inexpensive, and does not require the
installation of additional sensors. As for the existing research
using vibration signals and analyzing them in the time,
frequency, time-frequency domain. Therefore, the features in
the time, frequency, and time-frequency domains were
extracted hybrid. Then these features are combined into a
single feature to provide sufficient information for CP fault
classification. Based on our knowledge so far, fault diagnosis
in CP using hybrid feature extraction on current signals has
not been reported.
Therefore, this study proposes a new feature extraction
method that considers, (i) pre-processing the cross-
correlation of the current signal and the motor bearing speed
vibration signal, then the features are extracted from the
correlogram, (ii) using the motor bearing speed vibration
signal as a comparison of the current signal, which has never
been reported. The proposed method generates a pre-
processing discriminant feature that can help detect
disturbances in the centrifugal pump current signal. In
addition, this study employs KNN algorithm is used to study
patterns on discriminant features so that it can detect fault of
centrifugal pump effectively.
II. TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
A. Review of Cross-Correlation
Cross-correlation shows the similarity (similarity)
between two signals or data. This similarity between the
Assume that, ( ) and ( ) are two energy signals. The
signals is represented by a sequence called correlogram.
cross-correlation of the two signals are given by Eq.1.
≥0
( )=
(− ) ≥0
(1)
( ) is correlation
where is the time shift or lag, and
between two signals and with a lag of ‘ ’.
B. Review of k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) Classification
Algorithm
In statistics, the -nearest neighbor ( NN) algorithm is a
non-parametric classification method used for classification
and regression. In the case of classification, the input consists
of the training data in the dataset. The output is class
membership. NN is an algorithm for supervised learning
that only stores labeled training examples during the training
phase. The training process only stores the training data
memory. Then to make a prediction, NN will find the
nearest neighbors of the query point and computes the class
points. Instead of approaching the target function ( ) =
label (classification) based on the closest (most similar)
globally, as long as every NN prediction approaches the
target it works locally.
C. Review of Wavelet Packet Transform
The wavelet packet transform (WPT) is derived from the
wavelet transform (WT) which decomposes a signal into
levels. The WPT splits the input signal using low-pass and
high-pass filters and creates nodes at each level. The WPT
provides a comprehensive time-frequency analysis of the
input signal at both the high and low frequencies, so it can
overcome the poor resolution of the WT. The frequency range
of WPT is twice as wide as the proceeding level and half as
wide as the preceding level. Eq. 2 and 3 show the
mathematical description for WPT coefficients.
( )= × ℎ(−2 ), 0< & < 2 −1
(2)
( ( ) = ( ( ) × )(−2 ), 0 < & < 2 − 1
(3)
where ℎ and ) are the low-pass filter and the high-pass filter,
is the level of decomposition, & is the nodes (frequency
parameter) of the coefficient WPT.
 Existing methods for centrifugal pump fault diagnosis processed to determine the characteristics of each current
based on WPT consider energy, standard deviation, and signal and motor bearing speed vibration using cross-
entropy as input features for the classification model. Among correlation, time-frequency domain feature extraction, and
these features, wavelet packet energy extraction is an WPT energy extraction. So, it will produce 24 discriminant
intuitive approach to fault type classification. Each node in features as shown on Table 1.
the WPT contains a lot of information about energy variations
and the type of fault within a particular node can help in TABEL I DISCRIMINANT FEATURE IN CENTRIFUGAL
separating the fault types. The energy contained in each node PUMP FAULT DETECTION SYSTEM
after decomposition is as follows,
No. feature Feature No. feature Feature

∑34 01 ( ) 2
Peak time Impulse
* +,) = ⎛ ⎞
F1 F13
5
correlogram factor
(4)

⎝ ⎠
Instant peak
F2 F14 Crest factor
correlogram
Centroid
F3 F15 Skewness
where S is the number of samples at the node. correlogram
Widhtband Clearance
F4 F16
correlogram factor
III. METHOD
MSE Mean
F5 F17
correlogram frequency
This research was carried out on the centrifugal pump MP- Standard
Separator Oil unit at PT. Saka Energi Indonesia Ltd., Gresik, F6 Mean F18 deviation
Indonesia. The measurement data was obtained from the frequency
maintenance division from June 2020 – January 2021. Pump Root
fault data in the form of seal leakage and cavitation syndrome Standard
F7 F19 variance
are based on the history of maintenance work orders within deviation
frequency
those months. In this research, fault detection based on signal Spectral
is used. The signals used are the motor current signal and F8 Kurtosis F20
kurtosis
motor bearing speed vibration signal. These signals are Root mean
obtained from the process data in the control room of the F9 RMS F21 square
industry. frequency
The block diagram of the entire system is presented in Fig. WPT
1. The measurement data has been taken from June 2020 to Shape
F10 F22 energy
January 2021 every 40 minutes. Because there is a lot of factor
level 1
outlier data, so pre-processing is done to get decent data with WPT
a total of 1608 data. Then, we separated them into two Root
F11 F23 energy
conditions based on the history of maintenance, which is amplitude
level 2
normal and fault condition. The normal condition is divided WPT
into two conditions are normal-1 and normal-2. Normal-1 is F12 Peak F24 energy
the normal condition after maintenance due to seal leakage. level 3
While normal-2 is the normal condition after maintenance
due to cavitation syndrome. Fault conditions are divided into
Below is the plot of the current signal and motor bearing
two conditions are seal leakage and cavitation syndrome. Fig.
speed vibration signal under normal condition, seal leakage,
1 is the block diagram of the entire system.
and cavitation syndrome.

Fig 1. block diagram of the entire system Fig 2. current signal under normal condition and seal leakage.

The condition of the cavitation syndrome is in the form of

high pressure on the discharge which results in low suction.
So, each CP condition has 402 data. Furthermore, it will be
 ∑> > ( )
89,,+:9),; ?=(<ℎ =
+; @;:A+ 9 ( )
(6)

∑> ( )
B5* =
>
∑> ( )
(7)
>

Each feature of the correlogram extract will be labeled,

namely the correlogram peak value (F1), instant peak
(F2), correlogram centroid (F3), correlogram width (F4),
mean square abscissa (MSA) correlogram (F5). Then the
features (F1, F2, F3, F4, F5) will be used as a feature pool
Fig 3 current signal under normal condition and cavitation syndrome.
for fault classifier design.

B. Extraction of statistical features of the current signal and

motor bearing speed vibration signal under normal-fault
conditions in the time domain
In this step, statistical feature extraction is carried out on
the current signal and the motor bearing speed vibration
signal under normal and fault conditions in the time
domain. The statistical feature set extracted from both

features are mean value (C D) (F6), standard deviation (E)

current signals under normal and fault conditions. These

(F7), kurtosis ( ) (F8), root mean square (RMS) (F9),

shape factor ( 3F ) (F10), root amplitude ( GHHI ) (F11),
peak ( 4JK ) (F12), impulse factor ( LF ) (F13), crest factor
( MGJNI ) (F14), skewness ( O +? ) (F15), and clearance factor
Fig 4 motor bearing speed vibration signal under normal condition and seal
leakage.
( MPJKG ) (F16). These statistical features can be calculated
using Eq.8-18. Then the extracted features will be used
as a feature pool for fault classifier design.

∑R =
CQ =
S
(8)

∑( − U)
E=T
S
(9)

1
B5 = V ( = − ̅)
S
(10)
R

∑R ( = − ̅ )X
Fig 5 motor bearing speed vibration signal under normal condition and

=
cavitation syndrome

(∑R ( = − ̅ ) )
(11)

1
∑R (CR − CQ)Z
A. Cross-correlation on current signal and motor bearing

= S
speed vibration signal under normal-fault conditions
N JY Z
1 Q
(12)
[ ∑R (CR − C) \
Cross-correlation shows the similarity between two
S
signals. The similarity between the signals is represented

∑ ^| ( )|
by a correlogram, which is the plot of the cross-correlation
=] `
GHHI
S
in time series. The information on the correlogram will be
(13)
extracted into a set of discriminant features. These

= ; | ( )|
features include the correlogram peak value, instant peak,
correlogram centroid, correlogram width and mean 4JK (14)
squared error (MSE) correlogram. Correlogram peak
=
4JK
MGJNI 1
a ∑R ^| R | b
value feature, instant peaks can be easily seen from the

S
(15)
correlogram sequence. While the correlogram centroid,
correlogram width and mean square error (MSE) of the

=
G N
1
correlogram can be calculated using Eq.5-7.
3F
∑> ( ) ∑ | R|
S R
(16)

89,,+:9),; + <,9=( =
>
∑> ( )
(5)
>
=
cdef
MPJKG
a ∑h
ikg ^| i | b
g j
(17)
h
 =
cdef
LF ∑ikg| i |
g h
E. Feature pool creation
h
(18)
C. Extraction of statistical features of current signal and
motor bearing speed vibration signal under normal and
fault conditions in the frequency domain
At this step of frequency transformation does not use a
window (uniform window). Thus, the signal is convoluted
with a rectangular window of uniform height with the
input signal. Although it does not use a window, it is still
referred to as a uniform window or rectangle window
because there is still a windowing effect [16]. The
parameters are used in the transformation process to the
frequency domain with the FFT transformation are
sampling rate is 1e-3 and sampling frequency is 1000. The
result of the Fourier transformation is a two-sided power
spectral. So, it needs to be changed to single sided.
Because the resulting array value is proportional to the
F. Classifier creation
square of the amplitude of each frequency component in
each variable (current signal and motor bearing speed
vibration). So that the single-sided FFT will produce a
peak amplitude value which is the same as the input
signal amplitude in its stable condition. The next step is to
perform statistical feature extraction on the single-sided
The feature pool (a collection of features that are
considered one data) is created by combining the
extraction of discriminant features, namely the
correlogram feature of the current signal and motor
bearing speed vibration signal in the time domain (F1, F2,
F3, F4, F5), statistical features of the current signal and
bearing speed vibration signal in the time domain (F6, F7,
F8, F9, F10, F11, F12, F13, F14, F15, F16), statistical
features of the current signal and bearing speed vibration
signal in the frequency domain (F16, F18, F19, F20, F21),
and energy WPT features of current signal and motor
bearing speed vibration signal (F22, F23, F24). The
dimension of this feature pool consists of a 1608 x 24
matrix ensemble, which is 1608 rows of data with 24
feature columns. This feature pool will then become the
classifier input for centrifugal pump fault detection.
Classifier is a discrete function that is useful for placing a
label on a particular data. In machine learning and
statistics, classifiers are basically used to identify which
label, type, or category is appropriate for the data being
observed. The determination is made based on a set of

features are mean frequency ( C l ), standard deviation

FFT results in both normal and fault conditions. Its features that have been trained, where the data contains

( El ), root variance frequency ( CGml ), spectral kurtosis

information about the type, label, or category of the data.

( Cl nGIHNRN ), root mean square frequency ( ClG N ) using

TABEL II CLASSIFIER DATASET DISTRIBUTION

Eq.14-18. These features are then combined into one Training data Test data
vector there are normal pump feature vector, seal leakage Class
(70%) (30%)
feature vector, and cavitation syndrome feature vector. Normal 562 242
From these two vectors, the correlation coefficient will be Seal leakage 281 121
sought between the normal-1 signal with seal leakage, the Cavitation
normal-2 signal with cavitation syndrome, and the 281 121
syndrome
normal-1 with normal-2 signal. Total 1124 484
∑o O( )
C =
Total 1608
l
p
(19)

∑o 1O( ) − C l2
IV.
El =
RESULT

p−1
(20)
The effectiveness of the proposed centrifugal pump fault
∑o 1O( ) − C l2
CGml =
detection method can be seen on confusion matrix below.
p
(21)

∑o 1O( ) − C l2
X

Cl =
nGIHNRN
pEl X
(22)

∑o 1O( )2
ClG =
N
p
(23)

D. Feature extraction in time-frequency domain using

wavelet packet transform (WPT)
Wavelet packet energy feature extraction is carried out on
the current signal and the bearing vibration velocity of the
frequency domain under normal conditions, seal leakage
and cavitation syndrome to calculate the energy in the
signal at 3 levels using Eq.4. These features are then
combined into different vectors, namely the energy
feature vector of the normal, seal leakage, and cavitation
syndrome. Fig 6 confusion matrix model classifier of current signal
 Based on the Fig 6 confusion matrix model classifier
KKN algorithm, the model has a precision performance of
99,38% with an error rate of 0,62%. The positive prediction
results were true to the actual positive (TPR) or recall for each
class are 100% of normal, 98,35% of cavitation syndrome,
and 99,17% of seal leakage. The recall value of cavitation
syndrome is lower than other classes because there are 2 data
on cavitation syndrome conditions but by the classifier model
it is detected as a normal condition. This condition is referred
to as a false positive, where the normal condition (prediction
result) is read as a seal leakage (actual class) resulting in a
false prediction. The confusion matrix model classifier of
bearing speed vibration signal is shown on Fig 7.
Fig 7 confusion matrix model classifier of bearing speed vibration signal
Based on the confusion matrix model classifier KNN
algorithm of bearing speed vibration signal has a performance
a precision of 99.59% with error rate of 0.41%. The positive
prediction results were correct for the actual positive (recall)
for each class of 100% normal, 100% cavitation syndrome
and 98.36% seal leakage. The recall value of seal leakage is
lower than other classes because there are 2 data of seal
leakage conditions but by the classifier model it is detected as
a normal condition. This condition is referred to as a false
positive, where the normal condition (prediction result) is
read as a seal leakage (actual class) resulting in a false
prediction.
V. CONCLUSION
In this study, the centrifugal pump fault detection system
using discriminant feature extraction was proven to detect
faults well. The centrifugal pump fault detection system using
current data has an accuracy that is not much different from
using motor bearing speed vibration data. It shows that current
data is capable to detect faults with various advantages such
as lower costs because it does not require the installation of
additional accelerometer sensors and does not need more
space to install the sensor. In addition, from this study, it is
proven that motor bearing speed vibration signal able to detect
centrifugal pump faults, which so far have not been reported.
In essence, this discriminant feature extraction produces more
features so that the pump fault detection system will be more
sensitive to detect faults in centrifugal pumps.
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