FAULT DETECTION BASED ON GAUSSIAN PROCESS MODELS

An Application to the Rolling Mill

Dani Juricic

, Pavel Ettler

and Jus Kocijan

Department of Systems and Control, Jozef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, Ljubljana, Slovenia

COMPUREG Plzen, s.r.o., 306 34 Plzen, Czech Republic

Keywords:

Gaussian process model, Fault detection, Statistical hypothesis test, Cold rolling mill.

Abstract:

In this paper a fault detection approach based on Gaussian process model is proposed. The problem we raise

is how to deal with insufﬁciently validated models during surveillance of nonlinear plants given the fact that

tentative model-plant miss-match in such a case can cause false alarms. To avoid the risk, a novel model

validity index is suggested in order to quantify the level of conﬁdence associated to the detection results. This

index is based on estimated ‘distance’ between the current process data from data employed in the learning

set. The effectiveness of the test is demonstrated on data records obtained from operating cold rolling mill.

1 INTRODUCTION

It has been widely recognized that design of purpose-

ful process model usually represents the bottleneck

in the diagnostic system design (Venkatasubramanian

et al., 2003).In this paper we investigate a relatively

recent approach named Gaussian process model (GP),

which is a non-parametric description of the nonlinear

process (Rasmussen and Williams, 2006). We address

two issues related to the application of GP in fault de-

tection. First is the residual generation and evaluation,

which is performed by calculating the error between

the true output and that predicted by GP model. The

zero/non-zero qualitative value of the residual is de-

termined by means of the statistical hypothesis test-

ing. Second, we address the problem of on-line as-

sessment of model validity. The aim is to avoid pos-

sible false alarms that might occur due to incorrect

association of the prediction error with process fault

instead of insufﬁciently accurate process model. A

model validity index is suggested, which quantiﬁes

the level of conﬁdence associated with the detection

results.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 the

essentials of GP models are reviewed. In section 3 the

detection procedure is derived. Section 4 focuses on

derivation of the validity index. The ideas are imple-

mented as part of the case study related to the mon-

itoring of cold rolling mills. Finally, conclusions are

drawn and perspectives for future work are given.

2 SYSTEMS MODELLING WITH

GAUSSIAN PROCESSES

A detailed presentation of Gaussian process mod-

els can be found, e.g., in (Rasmussen and Williams,

2006) and some applications in, e.g., (Kocijan and

Likar, 2008).

GP emerges as the result of central limit theo-

rem (CLT). The nonlinear relationship between mea-

sured output y(x(k)) ∈ R and the regressor x(k) ∈ R

where k is the sample number, can be expressed as a

weighted sum of the eigen-functions Φ

(x(k))

y(k) = y(x(k)) =

∑

i=1

(x(k))) + n(k)

where n(k) is zero mean white i.i.d. noise. If w

are

zero mean i.i.d and m → ∞ under certain conditions

the CLT returns (Der and Lee, 2005)

y(x(1)),...,y(x(N)) ∼ N (0,Σ

Σ) (1)

Σ =k σ

i, j

= cov(y(i)y( j)) = C(x(i),x( j)) = (2)

= ve

−

(x(i)−x( j))

′

W(x(i)−x( j))

+ v

where W = diag(w

,...,w

) are the ‘hyperpa-

rameters’ of the covariance functions C : R

D×2

→ R

(Rasmussen and Williams, 2006), v

is the estimated

noise variance, v is the estimate of the vertical scale

of variation, D is the input dimension and δ

is Kro-

necker operator.

437

Juricic D., Ettler P. and Kocijan J..

FAULT DETECTION BASED ON GAUSSIAN PROCESS MODELS - An Application to the Rolling Mill.

DOI: 10.5220/0003541304370440

In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO-2011), pages 437-440

ISBN: 978-989-8425-74-4

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Consider a set of N input vec-

tors X = [x(1),x(2),...,x(N)] of dimen-

sion D and a vector of output data

y = [y(1),y(2),...,y(N)]

. Based on the data

set L = X, and given a new input vector x

∗

, we

wish to ﬁnd the predictive distribution of the cor-

responding output y

∗

. For a new test input x

∗

, the

predictive distribution of the corresponding output is

p(y

∗

,(X,y)) ∼N (m(y

∗

),σ

∗

)), i.e. is Gaussian,

with mean and variance

m(y

∗

) = k(x

∗

)

−1

y (3)

∗

) = k(x

∗

) − k(x

∗

)

−1

k(x

∗

) (4)

where k(x

∗

) = [C(x

∗

),...,C(x

∗

)]

is the N ×

1 vector of covariances between the test and training

cases and k(x

∗

) = C(x

∗

) is the covariance between

the test input and itself.

The estimation of the hyper-parameters of the co-

variance function is done by maximizing the log-

likelihood of the parameters. This can be computa-

tionally demanding since the inverse of the (N ×N)

data covariance matrix has to be calculated at every it-

eration. The cross-validation ﬁt of predictions is usu-

ally evaluated by log predictive density error (Kocijan

and Likar, 2008),

LD =

log(2π) +

∑

i=1

(log(σ

) +

), (5)

where y

, e

= ˆy

−y

and σ

are the system’s output,

the prediction error and the prediction variance of the

i-th element of output.

3 DETECTION PROCEDURE

BASED ON GP MODELS

As measured output y(k) and the predicted ˆy(k) are

both stochastic processes, detection will employ

the realization of pairs { y(1),x(1)},....,{y(i),x(i)}

and {ˆy(1),x(1)}, ...., {ˆy(i),x(i)} computed with GP

model. The difference between the actual y(k) and

the predicted ˆy(k) is referred to as residual.

3.1 Residual Generation with GPs

The prediction error can be set as follows:

ε(k) = y(k) −m(x(k)) (6)

Intuitively, if the prediction error is low, there

might be a good reason to infer that no fault affects

the system. High prediction error, on the other hand,

might mean either

• a fault is present in the system (e.g. instrument

reading) or

• the process operation reached a region for which

the process model is not appropriate, i.e. the vec-

tor x is far from the learning set L .

Assume we have a vector of residualsε

ε(k) and the

associated covariance matrix S(k) as follows

ε(k) = [ε(k −M + 1),ε(k−M+ 2),...,ε(k)]

(7)

S(k) = E{ε

εε

} = C(X

X(k),X

X(k))

− C(X

X(k),X

)Σ

−1

C(X(k),X

)

where X(k) = [x(k −M + 1),x(k−M + 2),...,x(k)],

⊂ L and the matrix

C(X

X(k),X

X(k)) =kC(x

),x

∈X

X(k),x

∈X

) k .

The problem we have now is to decide whether a bias

in predicted output y(t) is present (f

6= 0) or not

= 0).

3.2 Detection Rule based on a Statistical

Test

If there is no fault in the system the distribution of

ε(k) should read

ε(k) ∼N (0,S(k)) (8)

A bias error f

in the predicted output result in offset

in computedresidual ε(i). We have to choose between

the null hypothesis

: f

= 0

and the alternative

: f

6= 0

One rejects H

if the likelihood ratio is such that (Ro-

htagi, 1976)

κ =

(ε

ε(k))

sup

6=0

(ε

ε(k))

< τ (9)

Supremum in the denominator is achieved for

µ =

S(k)

−1

ε(k)

S(k)

−1

(10)

where 1

= [1,...,1

| {z }

N−times

]

From the logarithm of the likelihood ratio test (9)

(with (10) in mind), the followingcondition for reject-

ing the null hypothesis H

at the level of signiﬁcance

β follows

(k) =

| 1

S(k)

−1

ε(k) |

S(k)

−1

> c

1−β/2

(11)

Here c

1−β/2

is the signiﬁcance level taken from the

normal distribution at the degree of signiﬁcance β.

ICINCO 2011 - 8th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

438

4 MONITORING THE

DETECTOR WITH A MODEL

VALIDITY INDEX

The validity of the test (11) can be violated if GP

model is forced to make predictions at the points x

far from the learning set L . In practice, it might of-

ten happen that process model, originally trained in

certain operating region(s), is employed in a new op-

erating region not included in the learning set.

In this paper we rely on the observation that sensi-

tivity is inherent to the Gaussian process models. We

focus on y i.e. the scaled noise-free mapping of input

regressor x, which is related to y as follows

y(x(t)) =

√

v·y(x(t)) + n(t)

y(t) ∼ N (0,

C(x(t),x(t)))

where

C : R

D×2

→ R is modiﬁed covariance function

deﬁned by

C(x(i),x( j)) = exp



−

(x(i) −x( j))

W(x(i) −x( j))



Furthermore, note also that x(i) = x( j) implies

y(x(i)) = y(x( j)). Assume L = {x

,i = 1,...,N}. Let

the modiﬁed covariance matrix of the learning set

L be

Σ(L ,L ) = k

C(x

)k,i, j ∈ {1, ...,N}

Now, we start by adopting the notion of the distance

between a new regressor x and the learning set L .

Intuitively, if x = x

,k ∈ {1,...,N} then the distance

should be zero.

Proposition 1. Assume the learning set L =

,i = 1,...,N} and x is a regressor. The distance

between x

x and L is

δ(x,L ) =

C(x, x) −

Σ(x,L )

′

Σ(L ,L )

−1

Σ(x,L ). (12)

In eq. (12) the meaning of

Σ(x,L ) is

Σ(x,L ) = [

C(x, x(1))...

C(x,x(N))]

′

In the same manner as in case of a single regressor

x one can associate distance to the covariance matrix

of the predicted y(X) conditioned on L . Actually, the

result (12) is extended as follows

D(X,L ) =

Σ(X,X) −

Σ(X,L )

′

Σ(L ,L )

−1

Σ(X,L ).

(13)

Again, if X ⊂ L then by borrowing the derivation

from the Proposition 1 one can see that D

D = 0

0. If X

X is

‘far’ from L , D

D →I.

Deﬁnition 1. The validity index I of the GP model

is proposed as being equivalent to the distance of a set

of regressors from the learning set as follows

I = trace(D(X,L )). (14)

5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

To demonstrate the performance of the above FD

scheme, a case of a cold rolling mill is addressed.

In this process the output strip thickness belongs to

the key process variables. Its control is not trivial and

several approaches are being used to overcome the re-

lated technical problems (Ettler et al., 2007). One of

them relies on exploiting additional redundancybased

on available measured signals and mathematical mod-

els. Therefore, the on-line detection of faults in in-

strumentation and appropriate accommodation is key

for efﬁcient controller design. The estimated value is

directly usable for the thickness control and for mill

operators. The estimator output is in the form of the

probability distribution thus providing clear informa-

tion about reliability of the estimation (Ettler et al.,

2007).

In order to illustrate the method proposed above,

we will focus just on the relationship between thick-

ness H

(k), z(k) and rolling force F(k), where k de-

notes the sampling instance. It reads as follows

(k) = f(z(k),F(k)) (15)

where f is an unknown function which can be de-

scribed by Gaussian process model.

The set of 450 representative input data samples

is used for training of the model (15).The model is

validated with 110 input data samples different from

those used for training.

The proposed statistical test (14) and the validity

index (18) have been used to detect bias in the H

sensor. To illustrate the performance a simulation run

consisting of four parts is presented.

First, in the period 0-430 samples the process op-

erates in a fault-free mode. Moreover, in that period

the operating region belongs to the region encom-

passed in the learning set. The response of the detec-

tor is seen in the ﬁgure. The window length is taken

M = 50 samples. The process output is well predicted

by the model so that the detector is indicating no-fault

with low value of the validity index.

In the period 430-950 samples an offset f

= 100

in H

sensor appears. One can see that the test statistic

almost immediately crosses the threshold value thus

indicating the presence of fault. The validity index

stays around zero, indicating that the process is oper-

ating in validated region.

In the third period 950-1450 the process operates

without fault.

At k = 1450 the operating point changes. The

detector receives data not envisaged in the learning

stage, Both the test statistics and validity index grows

indicating that something unusual is going on in the

FAULT DETECTION BASED ON GAUSSIAN PROCESS MODELS - An Application to the Rolling Mill

439

Figure 1: Results obtained over operating records.

process. Without additional information at that stage

it is not possible to distinguish whether the cause is in

fault or in novel operating region.

6 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we presented a fault detection algorithm

based on Gaussian process model that is suited for

handling instrument faults in nonlinear systems. The

main contributionof the paper regards a validity index

which tells how much should the process model be

trusted when deciding about faults based on data from

current operating region. The idea is implemented in

a Gaussian process model framework, which is suited

for data-driven modelling and requires minimal a pri-

ori knowledge.Further extensions to a wider set of

faults should provide more insight into the potential

of the ideas presented here as well as advantages and

disadvantages compared to other methods.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The work was supported by the EUROSTARS project

ProBaSensor and by the grants L2-2338 of the Slove-

nian Research Agency and 7D09008 of the Czech

Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.

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