EAAI Journal 2025 Journal Article
Zero-shot learning augmented slow feature analysis for semantic-aware industrial process fault detection
- Wenjie Yang
- Xiaogang Deng
- Lumeng Huang
- Yuping Cao
Slow Feature Analysis (SFA) has shown considerable success in the field of industrial process fault detection. Nonetheless, due to its unsupervised nature, SFA relies solely on the normal training data and overlooks the incorporation of prior process knowledge, which consequently diminishes its efficacy in early fault detection. To mitigate this limitation, this paper introduces the concept of Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) and proposes an improved SFA approach, referred to as ZSL-SFA. This novel method leverages fault semantic representations as auxiliary knowledge to enhance fault detection sensitivity in industrial process monitoring. The ZSL-SFA framework implements a dual-model collaborative monitoring system: (1) a primary SFA model is developed using normal operational data to capture the dynamic characteristics of the process; and (2) a semantic encoding mechanism, grounded in expert knowledge, is devised to build the auxiliary model, where a probabilistic attribute learner adaptively extracts semantic information from fault attribute descriptions, facilitating effective fault knowledge transfer through similarity analysis. The monitoring outcomes from both the primary and auxiliary models are integrated using a Bayesian fusion strategy, culminating in a comprehensive ZSL-SFA monitoring system. The main advantage of this method is its ability to fully exploit prior process knowledge to enhance the basic SFA model without the need for additional labeled fault samples. Experimental validations on the Tennessee-Eastman process simulation platform are performed to indicate that the proposed ZSL-SFA method surpasses the basic SFA method in terms of fault detection performance.