Power Equipment Defects Prediction Based on the Joint Solution of Classification and Regression Problems Using Machine Learning Methods

Our paper proposes a method for constructing a system for predicting defects and failures of power equipment and the time of their occurrence based on the joint solution of regression and classification problems using machine learning methods. A distinctive feature of this method is the use of the equipment’s technical condition index as an informative parameter. The results of calculating and visualizing the technical condition index in relation to the electro-hydraulic automatic control system of hydropower turbine when predicting the defect “clogging of drainage channels” showed that its determination both for an equipment and for a group of its functional units allows one to quickly and with the required accuracy assess the arising technological disturbances in the operation of power equipment. In order to predict the behavior of the technical condition index of the automatic control system of the turbine, the optimal tuning of the LSTM model of the recurrent neural network was developed and carried out. The result of the application of the model was the forecast of the technical condition index achievement and the limiting characteristic according to the current time data on its values. The developed model accurately predicted the behavior of the technical condition index at time intervals of 3 and 10 h, which made it possible to draw a conclusion about its applicability for early identification of the investigated defect in the automatic control system of the turbine. Thus, we can conclude that the joint solution of regression and classification problems using an information parameter in the form of a technical condition index allows one to develop systems for predicting defects, one significant advantage of which is the ability to early determine the development of degradation phenomena in power equipment.