Interval analysis for neural networks with application to fault detection

This paper investigates an interval analysis method for neural networks and applies it to fault detection for systems with unknown but bounded measurement noise. First, a novel interval analysis method is presented, which can compute the bounds of the output of a feedforward neural network subject to a bounded input. By applying the proposed interval analysis method to a network trained with fault-free system data, adaptive thresholds for fault detection are computed. Finally, one can acquire fault detection results via a fault detection strategy. The proposed method can achieve tight bounds of the network output and employ simple operations, which leads to accurate fault detection results and a low computational burden. A numerical simulation and an experiment on an AC servo motor are given to illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.