Machine Psychology – don’t stop shouting!!

The crying baby, the constant ping of a mobile phone, the raging car alarm, noisy irritations that can
distract and annoy. In the machine world noise is also seen a nuisance that confuses and blurs results.
However there is often value in these signals for those that are attentive and listening. In many cases the
machine may be shouting Fix Me! But its request for ‘help’ is obscured by noise that is generated along
with the plea. Much as a psychologist will listen to a patient and examine possible contributory factors
such as sleeping and eating patterns, and look for any negative thoughts that might be causing or
contributing to a problem. In the world of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) there
are similar techniques that are being used to ‘listen’ to the machine, interpret its needs and learn what
makes it ‘tick’.

Artificial intelligence and its sub set machine learning have been around for a many years. Arthur L.
Samuel was an early pioneer in the field of AI and wrote a paper in the IBM Journal of Research and
Development in 1959 titled "Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the Game of Checkers". In it he
uses the phrase “machine learning” and is concerned with “the programming of a digital computer to
behave in a way which, if done by human beings or animals, would be described as involving the process
of learning.” AI and ML continued to be a focus fueled by interest and excitement in the possibilities of
a truly intelligent machine such as Arthur C. Clarkes HAL9000 sentient computer in 2001 A Space
Odyssey. The promise however was hampered by a number of limitations such as the availability of
sufficient computing power, Hans Moravec argued in 1976 that artificial intelligence requires computer
power in the same way that aircraft require horsepower. Below a certain threshold, it's impossible, but,
as power increases, eventually it could become possible. The inability to work with large data sets was
also a hindrance, Ross Quillian's s work on natural language understanding was demonstrated using a
vocabulary of only twenty words because that was all that could fit in memory. Fast forward to the
present day and we carry a thousand times more computing power in our back pocket than NASA had at
their disposal for the 1969 mission to the moon. This combined with a rapidly changing landscape of
technology which offers larger data storage and faster processing for a lower costs opens up a new
horizon for the application of machine learning. It is no longer necessary to be as selective on the data
we keep, information that previously seem extraneous and not worth the cost of retention can now be
used for potential insight.

In the maintenance domain the application of AI and ML to solve large complex problems has been
experimented with for many years in an attempt to develop a more responsive and effective approach
to a variety of problems. The ability to identify problems, learn patterns and mitigate the impact of a
failure is of particular interest. An analogy has been drawn between an equipment failure and its
subsequent impacts and the outbreak of a disease in the human population, both events place an
unexpected demand and stress on the systems that support them, the hospital, maintenance facility or
the supply chain. In the field of public health AI and machine learning is being used to predict disease
outbreaks by bring together data from ecology, biogeography, and public health studies to identify the
likely emergence of an outbreak, allowing public health officials to put in place countermeasures.
Similarly maintenance managers would benefit from the ‘screening’ and analysis of health data from
the aircraft on board sensors, maintenance record histories, operational parameters and equipment
performance data to identify and prioritize statistically significant events. The collection and analysis of
this data has been an ongoing endeavor for the OEM’s with IVHM (Integrated Vehicle Health
Monitoring) systems aiming to capture and process the information. There are however often
limitations placed on the sub systems components that are monitored and whilst it is true that these
systems can offer some significant advantages they are often more diagnostic in nature and fail to fully
leverage the benefits of applied machine learning across a broader operational data set.

There are a number of machine learning techniques that can be applied to a given data set based upon
the problem statement and the type of data available. One approach is supervised learning in which a
training data set is used and has a known result. The model makes predictions using this data and
produces a ‘reasonable’ inferred output in unseen situations. In psychology this is often referred to as
concept learning in which lists or rules or characteristics are used to allocate an object to a category or
class, for example when we think of the concept “aircraft” it includes the rule “must be able to fly” and
“inanimate” through the application of the rules we are able to distinguish it from a bird for example
and over time as we develop experience in the application of the rules and classifications we learn to
identify the different types of aircraft based on their characteristics. Supervised learning can be used to
determine whether or not a flight will be delayed by leveraging data on flight, carrier, punctuality,
origin / destination and weather conditions to predict with a relatively high degree of accuracy if your
mid afternoon flight from Chicago in November is likely to be delayed.

The opposite approach to supervised learning is unsupervised learning. In this case the input data is
not labeled and we do not know the result. The model attempts to deduce patterns in the input data
through the application of the algorithm to organsie similar data, identify patterns or reduce
redundancy. Semi Supervised is a hybrid of both approaches and deals with a mixture of labeled and
unlabeled data. Within each of these paradigms there are several different types of modeling
techniques that can be applies and it is important to select one that is appropriate to the type of
problem you are trying to solve. In order to achieve good results it is important to combine an
understanding of machine learning, the nature of the problem, the quality, quantity and type of the data
with specific domain knowledge and understanding. Oftentimes this can be a stumbling block as it
requires a variety of skills and capabilities to come together and collaborate on the problem. The flow
chart from scikit choosing the right estimator provides some generalized guidelines in the selection
process:
Over the years many various machine learning techniques have been applied in the aviation
maintenance field, one particular area of interest is anomaly detection where we attempt to identify
patterns in data that indicate a deviation from the normal operating profile. We can think of these as a
single data point or small cluster of data points that are significantly different from the rest of our data
set. These difference lie outside the ‘normal operating profile’ (NOP) of the asset and are flagged as
anomalies. A fundamental requirement of this ‘intelligent’ monitoring agent is not only the detection of
the anomaly but also the identification of the contributing component to that abnormality. There has
been some interesting research that adopts this traditional approach and attempts to solve the problem
through the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). ANNs are based on the idea of emulating a
biological nervous system such as the human brain, and like people they learn by example. ANNs have
the added advantage of massive parallelism, a distributed representation of knowledge, generalization
ability and fault tolerance capabilities. They are commonly used for regression and classification
problems and are thought to be one of the more promising techniques for predicting the Remaining
Useful Life (RUL). Mazhar et al(2007) examined the potential of combining a Weibull reliability
assessment model which utilised degradation and condition monitoring data with an ANN model to
estimates the remaining life of used components. More recently Jain et al(2014) have applied the
technique to predict the RUL of an aircraft engine which has unknown initial wear. They used the
operational parameters altitude, mach number, and throttle resolver angle as well as measurement data
from 19 different sensors that provided data on a range of parameters such as temperature at fan inlet,
LPC, HPC,LPT, the physical fan speed and the engine pressure ratio to predict the RUL. Another
application of ANNs was investigated by Rao et al(2015) have experimented with ANNs by tracking
failure mode effects, control actuators and sensors subsystems using s SAAB’s open source Generic
Aerodata Model (GAM) . The results showed that an ANN, once trained was able to identify the
anomalies and indicate the root cause of the failure.

Whilst Neural Networks are currently generating a lot of interest, a more establish technique applied in
maintenance, is the Genetic Algorithm (GA). They bear a certain resemblance to ANNs in that they have
a biological context but are based on the theory of natural selection and genetics. They mimic nature in
as much as they use the process of selection, recombination and mutation to ‘evolve’ a solution to a
given problem. GA’s are an optimization technique that work with large number of continuous or
discrete variables and are therefore useful when we turn our attention to operational problems such as
the optimization of maintenance scheduling. Lapa et al discusses how they could be used to optimize
maintenance schedules by considering factors such as the probabilities of requiring repairs and their
costs, the typical downtime, costs, maintenance impact on the systems reliability, probability of
imperfect maintenance, etc.

The sheer variety of available algorithms for machine learning problem solving can seem overwhelming.
Genetic algorithms, Bayesian estimation methods, artificial neural networks, perceptrons, random
forests, K-nearest neighbor, support vector machines, are all able to listen to our machines and help us
interpret and predict their needs. Although variations exist in the algorithms and some may be more
suited to a particular problem than others, what is perhaps equally if not more important is the
availability of a scalable and robust environment that allows easy upload, transformation and processing
of data. This becomes increasingly critical to a company’s success as it is no longer sufficient to be the
best at what you do, you also need to be the best at analyzing what you do as well as interpreting and
learning from what you do. GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt remarked at the third "Minds +
Machines" summit that "If you went to bed last night as an industrial company, you're going to wake up
this morning as a software and analytics company," highlighting the fact that every company needs to
focus on extracting value from the data it generates.

Pulling together all the necessary resources, data science skills, domain knowledge as well as the
hardware and software to take full advantage of the machine learning potential can be challenging even
for the largest players. As a result we are starting to see the emergence of specialized cloud based
platforms that provide data hosting and pre built and trained ML algorithms. A ‘Model as a Service’
(MaaS) approach to machine learning makes it easy for companies to start using ML to analyze large
data sets allowing them to them to deliver more accurate results faster without the expense and risk of
building, deploying and managing the infrastructure internally. They are able to access state of the art
machine learning code easily, allowing them to simplify and ‘operationalise’ the use of data. Now
perhaps we can truly listen to and understand the machine when it shouts for help!

…..
Mazhar, M.I., Kara,S. and Kaebernick,H. (2007) Remaining life estimation of used components in consumer
products: Life cycle data analysis by Weibull and artificial neural networks. Journal of Operations Management, Vol
25, 6, 1184-1193

Pallanti Srinivasa Rao , Sreeram Mohan , and Venkateshwar Chindam - AI Based On-Board Diagnostic and
Prognostic Health Management System. ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE PROGNOSTICS AND HEALTH
MANAGEMENT SOCIETY 2015

Lapa, C.M.F., Cláudio, M. N.A. Pereira,C.M.N.A. and Paes de Barros, M. (2006) A model for preventive maintenance
planning by genetic algorithms based in cost and reliability, Reliability Engineering &System Safety, Vol.91, 2, 233-
240

Amit Kumar Jai, Pradeep Kundu, Bhupesh Kumar Lad - Prediction of Remaining Useful Life of an Aircraft Engine
under Unknown Initial Wear, 5th International & 26 th All India Manufacturing Technology, Design and Research
Conference (AIMTDR 2014) December 12th–14th, 2014,