Early detection of changes in transient running status from sensor signals attracts increasing attention in modern industries. To achieve this end, this paper presents a new differential equation-based prediction model that can realize one-step-ahead prediction of machine status. Together with this model, an analysis of continuous monitoring of condition signal by means of a null hypothesis testing is presented to inspect/diagnose whether an abnormal status change occurs or not during successive machine operations. The detection operation is executed periodically and continuously, such that the machine running status can be monitored with an online and real-time manner. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using three representative real-engineering applications: external loading status monitoring, bearing health status monitoring and speed condition monitoring. The method is also compared with those benchmark methods reported in the literature. From the results, the proposed method demonstrates significant improvements over others, which suggests its superiority and great potentials in real applications.
Keywords: differential equation; early change detection; machine running status; prediction model.