A Generalizable Sample Resolution Augmentation Method for Mechanical Fault Diagnosis Based on ESPCN

Data augmentation has become a hot topic in the field of mechanical intelligent fault diagnosis. It can expand the limited training dataset by generating simulated samples, but there is still no effective method augmenting the resolution of low resolution sample. In this paper, a simple algorithm, namely, efficient subpixel convolutional neural network (ESPCN), is proposed to solve this deficiency. The ESPCN model performs the arrange operation on the raw low resolution data through the subpixel layer and outputs the result of four-channel multifeature maps. Then, the sample resolution is increased to four times compared with the raw low resolution sample. Finally, the generated high resolution dataset is employed to train the stacked autoencoders (SAE) for fault classification, and the raw high resolution dataset is used for testing. Two fault diagnosis cases with different sample dimensions and rotating speeds are set up to simulate the low resolution situation, and the experimental results verify the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.