ANN- and ANFIS-based multi-staged decision algorithm for the detection and diagnosis of bearing faults

Condition monitoring of roller element bearing defects has been one of the biggest problems in predictive maintenance since bearing failures may give catastrophic results on the machining operations and may cause downtime. Two of the well-established and widely used methods for bearing fault detection and diagnosis are the artificial neural network (ANN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS). For this aim, a multi-staged decision algorithm was developed in this study based on ANN and ANFIS models. Both time and frequency domain parameters extracted from the vibration and current signals were used to train the ANN and ANFIS models, which were then used to detect and diagnose the severity of the bearing fault. Experimental data collected from a shaft-bearing mechanism were used to test the performances of the two schemes. The system was operated under four different speeds, for a brand-new bearing and bearings with artificially introduced local defects with various sizes. The experimental results showed that the proposed scheme is an effective means for detecting and diagnosing bearing faults. Furthermore, the results revealed that ANFIS-based scheme was superior to the ANN-based one especially in diagnosing fault severity.