Wind turbine fault detection and identification using a two-tier machine learning framework

A proactive approach is essential to optimize wind turbine maintenance and minimize downtime. By utilizing advanced data analysis techniques on the existing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system data, valuable insights can be gained into wind turbine performance without incurring high costs. This allows for early fault detection and predictive maintenance, ensuring that unscheduled or reactive maintenance is minimized and revenue loss is mitigated. In this study, data from a wind turbine SCADA system in the southeast of Ireland were collected, preprocessed, and analyzed using statistical and visualization techniques to uncover hidden patterns related to five fault types within the system. The paper introduces a conditional function designed to test two given scenarios. The first scenario employs a two-tier approach involving fault detection followed by fault identification. Initially, faulty samples are detected in the first tier and then passed to the second tier, which is trained to diagnose the specific fault type for each sample. In contrast, the second scenario involves a simpler solution referred to as naive, which treats fault types and normal cases together in the same dataset and trains a model to distinguish between normal samples and those related to specific fault types. Machine learning models, particularly robust classifiers, were tested in both scenarios. Thirteen classifiers were included, ranging from tree-based to traditional classifiers, neural networks, and ensemble learners. Additionally, an averaging feature importance technique was employed to select the most impactful features on the model decisions as a starting point. A comparison of the results reveals that the proposed two-tier approach is more accurate and less time-consuming, achieving 95% accuracy in separating faulty from normal samples and approximately 91% in diagnosing each fault type. Furthermore, ensemble learners, particularly bagging and stacking, demonstrated superior fault detection and identification performance. The performance of the classifiers was validated using t-SNE and explainable AI techniques, confirming that the impactful features align with the findings and that the proposed two-tier solution outperforms the naive solution. These results strongly indicate that the proposed solution is accurate, independent, and less complex compared to existing solutions.