Multimodal Continual Learning for Process Monitoring: A Novel Weighted Canonical Correlation Analysis With Attention Mechanism

Aimed at sequential dynamic modes, a novel multimodal weighted canonical correlation analysis using an attention (MWCCA-A) mechanism is introduced to derive a single model for process monitoring, by integrating two ideas of replay and regularization in continual learning. Under the assumption that data are received sequentially, subsets of data from past modes with dynamic features are selected and stored as replay data, which are utilized together with the current mode data for continual model parameter estimation. The weighted canonical correlation analysis (WCCA) is introduced to achieve appropriate weightings of past modes’ replay data so that the latent variables are extracted by maximizing the weighted correlation with its prediction via the attention mechanism. Specifically, replay data weightings are obtained via the probability density estimation from each mode. This is also beneficial in overcoming data imbalance among multiple modes and consolidating the significant features of past modes further. Alternatively, the proposed model also regularizes parameters based on its previous modes’ importance, which is measured by synaptic intelligence (SI). Meanwhile, the objective is decoupled into a regularization-related part and a replay-related part, to overcome the potentially unstable optimization trajectory of SI-based continual learning. In comparison with several multimode monitoring methods, the effectiveness of the proposed MWCCA-A approach is demonstrated by a continuous stirred tank heater (CSTH), Tennessee Eastman process (TEP), and a practical coal pulverizing system.