Noise-Aware Sparse Gaussian Processes and Application to Reliable Industrial Machinery Health Monitoring

Maintenance of machinery equipment in smart manufacturing requires real-time health monitoring, strongly supported by the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Most AI-based health monitoring systems are powered by advanced modeling methods and intensive high-quality monitoring data. Such monitoring systems center on high-accuracy predictive performance but cannot necessarily convey reliability, such as satisfactory resistance to strong noises, credible uncertainty analysis, and model interpretability. This article novelly proposes noise-aware sparse Gaussian processes (NASGP) within the Bayesian inference framework. NASGP are capable of consistent high-performance and credible uncertainty assessment under strong noises. Based on NASGP, we then develop an explainable generalized additive model to bridge the gap between latent inference mechanism and domain expert knowledge. The efficacy of the proposed approach is corroborated through two case studies including remaining useful life prognosis and fault diagnosis for rolling bearings.