Extruder Machine Gear Fault Detection Using Autoencoder LSTM via Sensor Fusion Approach

Abstract

In industrial settings, gears play a crucial role by assisting various machinery functions such as speed control, torque manipulation, and altering motion direction. The malfunction or failure of these gear components can have serious repercussions, resulting in production halts and financial losses. To address this need, research efforts have focused on early defect detection in gears in order to reduce the impact of possible failures. This study focused on analyzing vibration and thermal datasets from two extruder machine gearboxes using an autoencoder Long Short-Term Memory (AE-LSTM) model, to ensure that all important characteristics of the system are utilized. Fast independent component analysis (FastICA) is employed to fuse the data signals from both sensors while retaining their characteristics. The major goal is to implement an outlier detection approach to detect and classify defects. The results of this study highlighted the extraordinary performance of the AE-LSTM model, which achieved an impressive accuracy rate of 94.42% in recognizing malfunctioning gearboxes within the extruder machine system. The study used robust global metric evaluation techniques, such as accuracy, F1-score, and confusion metrics, to thoroughly evaluate the model's dependability and efficiency. LSTM was additionally employed for anomaly detection to further emphasize the adaptability and interoperability of the methodology. This modification yielded a remarkable accuracy of 89.67%, offering additional validation of the model's reliability and competence.