Combined Probability Approach and Indirect Data-Driven Method for Bearing Degradation Prognostics

This study proposes an application of relevance vector machine (RVM), logistic regression (LR), and autoregressive moving average/generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARMA/GARCH) models to assess failure degradation based on run-to-failure bearing simulating data. Failure degradation is calculated by using an LR model, and then regarded as the target vectors of the failure probability for training the RVM model. A multi-step-ahead method-based ARMA/GARCH is used to predict censored data, and its prediction performance is compared with one of Dempster-Shafer regression (DSR) method. Furthermore, RVM is selected as an intelligent system, and trained by run-to-failure bearing data and the target vectors of failure probability obtained from the LR model. After training, RVM is employed to predict the failure probability of individual units of bearing samples. In addition, statistical process control is used to analyze the variance of the failure probability. The result shows the novelty of the proposed method, which can be considered as a valid machine degradation prognostic model.