Sensor-agnostic mechanical machine fault identification

Abstract

A method for identifying a fault of at least one mechanical machine, including causing a first plurality of sensors coupled to a corresponding first plurality of mechanical machines to acquire a first plurality of sets of signals emanating from the first plurality of mechanical machines, the first plurality of mechanical machines sharing at least one characteristic, supplying at least the first plurality of sets of signals of the first plurality of mechanical machines to a pre-existing fault classifier previously trained to automatically identify faults of a second plurality of mechanical machines based on signals emanating therefrom and previously acquired by a second plurality of sensors, the second plurality of sensors being of a different type than the first plurality of sensors, the second plurality of mechanical machines sharing the at least one characteristic, modifying the pre-existing fault classifier by employing transfer learning, based at least on the first plurality of sets of signals of the first plurality of mechanical machines, thereby providing a modified fault classifier, applying the modified fault classifier to at least one additional set of signals acquired by at least one sensor of the first plurality of sensors and emanating from at least one given mechanical machine sharing the at least one characteristic, the modified fault classifier being configured to automatically identify at least one fault of the at least one given mechanical machine based on the at least one additional set of signals, and providing a human sensible output, by an output device, including at least identification of the fault of the at least one given mechanical machine, at least one of a repair or maintenance operation being performed based on the human sensible output.