Functional subspace variational autoencoder for domain-adaptive fault diagnosis

Abstract

This paper presents the functional subspace variational autoencoder, a technique addressing challenges in sensor data analysis in transportation systems, notably the misalignment of time series data and a lack of labeled data. Our technique converts vectorial data into functional data, which captures continuous temporal dynamics instead of discrete data that consist of separate observations. This conversion reduces data dimensions for machine learning tasks in fault diagnosis and facilitates the efficient removal of misalignment. The variational autoencoder identifies trends and anomalies in the data and employs a domain adaptation method to associate learned representations between labeled and unlabeled datasets. We validate the technique’s effectiveness using synthetic and real-world transportation data, providing valuable insights for transportation infrastructure reliability monitoring.