A fault detection technique based on deep transfer learning from experimental linear actuator to real-world railway door systems

Fault detection for railway door systems based on data-driven approaches has been investigated in recent years due to the massive amount of available monitoring data. Despite much attention to its application, the major challenge is the lack of available faulty datasets to build a reliable model since railway maintenance is usually conducted regularly to avoid significant defects from economic and safety points of view. We aimed to tackle the issue by employing transfer learning. Firstly, we built a long-short term memory-based deep learning model using linear actuator experimental datasets. Then, we employed a transfer learning technique to adjust the deep learning model to be available to real-world railway door systems using a small amount of faulty data. As a result, high fault detection accuracy can be obtained at 0.979 as F1 score. The result reveals that an accurate fault detection model can be built even though a large amount of labelled datasets is unavailable. In addition, the proposed method is applicable to other door systems or electro-mechanical actuators since the method is unspecific to physical mechanisms and fault modes, and the only motor current signal is used in this research. The signal is primarily available from the controller or motor drive without additional sensors.