Sequential Multiscale Noise Tuning Stochastic Resonance for Train Bearing Fault Diagnosis in an Embedded System

Multiscale noise tuning stochastic resonance (MSTSR) has been proved to be an effective method for enhanced fault diagnosis by taking advantage of noise to detect the incipient faults of the bearings and gearbox. This paper addresses a sequential algorithm for the MSTSR method to detect the train bearing faults in an embedded system through the acoustic signal analysis. Specifically, the energy operator, digital filter array, and fourth rank Runge-Kutta equation methods are designed to realize the signal demodulation, multiscale noise tuning, and bistable stochastic resonance in sequence. The merit of the sequential algorithm is that it reduces the memory consumption and decreases the computation complexity, so that it can be efficiently implemented in the embedded system based on a low-cost, low-power hardware platform. After the sequential algorithm, the real-valued fast Fourier transform is used to calculate the power spectrum of the analyzed signal. The proposed method has been verified in algorithm performance and hardware implementation by three kinds of practical acoustic signals from defective train bearings. An enhanced performance of the proposed fault diagnosis method is confirmed as compared with several traditional methods, and the hardware performance is also validated.