Improving kernel PCA-based algorithm for fault detection in nonlinear industrial process through fractal dimension

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a widely used technique for fault detection and diagnosis. PCA works well when the data set has linear characteristics. However, most industrial processes have nonlinear characteristics in their data. Kernel PCA (KPCA) is an alternative solution for such types of data sets. This solution doesn’t come without a cost since one of KPCA’s disadvantages is a large number of observations which results in more occupied storage space and more execution time than the PCA technique. Furthermore, if the data is too large it may minimize the monitoring performance of the KPCA model. Reduced KPCA (RKPCA) is a solution for the conventional KPCA limitations. Firstly, RKPCA can deal with nonlinear characteristics without crucial problems because it is based on the KPCA algorithm with a data reduction part where it keeps most of the data’s information. Thus, by reducing the number of observations RKPCA reduces the occupied storage space and execution time while preserving tolerable monitoring performance. The proposed RKPCA algorithm consists of two parts. First, the large-sized training data set is reduced using the fractal dimension technique (correlation dimension). Afterward, the KPCA model is developed through the obtained reduced training data set. The proposed scheme is applied to the Tennessee Eastman Process and the Cement Plant Rotary Kiln data sets to evaluate its performance in comparison with other algorithms.