Physical and metrological approach for feature’s definition and selection in condition monitoring

In this paper, a methodology is described aiming at emphasizing physical and metrological criteria in feature selection for condition monitoring of a real scale mechatronic system. The device is used for packaging applications according to the movements of its end effector, driven by a couple of brushless servomotors and a kinematic mechanical linkage. The approach is hybrid, meaning that the starting feature set is built with reference to both experimental data from different sensors and to the indication of a simplified kinematic and dynamic model of the mechanical linkage itself. A critical comparison and mixing of theoretical and experimental data, based also on a physical interpretation of differences, suggests some more features, with respect to the classical ones, of hybrid type, which could be mostly correlated to the effects of statuses and defects of the system to be identified. The whole procedure is step by step validated, in order to evaluate the variability of features, throughout the whole procedure. The variability is analyzed depending on the actions that are realized in order to define, select, and use the proposed features for data processing by advanced algorithms, like the most typically used classifiers and artificial neural networks. A comparison with the state-of-the-art automatic feature's selection procedure is also presented. Experimental results show that the proposed methodology is able to classify with high accuracy many statuses of the mechatronic system, which are only slightly different as for set-up settings and/or mechanical wear and lubrication conditions of mechanical parts of the mechatronic system. Issues to be pursued to a more effective generalization of the method are also discussed.