A time-saving fault diagnosis using simplified fast GAN and triple-type data transfer learning

Existing intelligent fault diagnosis approaches demand substantial data for training diagnostic models. However, factors such as the inherent characteristics of bearings, operating conditions, and privacy security make collecting comprehensive fault-bearing data very difficult. Although generating synthetic data through generative adversarial networks (GANs) is feasible, the data generation of GANs is a time-consuming process. To address these challenges, a fault diagnosis framework based on GAN and deep transfer learning (DTL) is proposed, termed the simplified fast GAN triple-type data transfer learning (SFGAN-TDTL) method. Initially, an SFGAN is proposed as a replacement for traditional GANs. The time-frequency image data generated by SFGAN serve to augment the training dataset, offering faster and higher-quality data generation compared to traditional GANs. To further reduce time consumption for GAN-based methods, the TDTL method is proposed. Differing from DTL, which utilizes synthetic data to construct a pre-trained model and conducts targeted fine-tuning with real data, TDTL employs open-source data, synthetic data, and real data to fill the weights of the task-insensitive layer, task-sensitive layer, and fully connected layer, respectively. Numerical results demonstrate that SFGAN-TDTL maintains higher diagnostic accuracy while significantly reducing time consumption.