AI-Driven Virtual Sensors for Real-Time Dynamic Analysis of Mechanisms: A Feasibility Study

The measurement of the ground forces on a real structure or mechanism in operation can be time-consuming and expensive, particularly when production cannot be halted to install sensors. In cases in which disassembling the parts of the system to accommodate sensor installation is neither feasible nor desirable, observing the structure or mechanism in operation and quickly deducing its force trends would facilitate monitoring activities in industrial processes. This opportunity is gradually becoming a reality thanks to the coupling of artificial intelligence (AI) with design techniques such as the finite element and multi-body methods. Properly trained inferential models could make it possible to study the dynamic behavior of real systems and mechanisms in operation simply by observing them in real time through a camera, and they could become valuable tools for investigation during the operation of machinery and devices without the use of additional sensors, which are difficult to use and install. In this paper, the idea presented is developed and applied to a simple mechanism for which the reaction forces during operating conditions are to be determined. This paper explores the implementation of an innovative vision-based virtual sensor that, through data-driven training, is able to emulate traditional sensing solutions for the estimation of reaction forces. The virtual sensor and relative inferential model is validated in a scenario as close to the real world as possible, taking into account interfering inputs that add to the measurement uncertainty, as in a real-world measurement scenario. The results indicate that the proposed model has great robustness and accuracy, as evidenced by the low RMSE values in predicting the reaction forces. This demonstrates the model's effectiveness in reproducing real-world scenarios, highlighting its potential in the real-time estimation of ground reaction forces in industrial settings. The success of this vision-based virtual sensor model opens new avenues for more robust, accurate, and cost-effective solutions for force estimation, addressing the challenges of uncertainty and the limitations of physical sensor deployment.