Chuanjiang Li1, Shaobo Li1, Yixiong Feng1, Konstantinos Gryllias2, Fengshou Gu3, and Michael Pecht4
1State Key Laboratory of Public Big Data, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, Guizhou, China
2Department of Mechanical Engineering, Flanders Make, KU Leuven, 3000 Louvain, Belgium
3School of Computing and Engineering, University of Huddersfeld, Huddersfeld HD1 3DH, UK
4Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
For more information about this article and related research, please contact Prof. Michael G. Pecht
Abstract:
Prognostics and health management (PHM) is critical for enhancing equipment reliability and reducing maintenance costs, and research on intelligent PHM has made significant progress driven by big data and deep learning techniques in recent years. However, complex working conditions and high-cost data collection inherent in real-world scenarios pose small-data challenges for the application of these methods. Given the urgent need for data-efficient PHM techniques in academia and industry, this paper aims to explore the fundamental concepts, ongoing research, and future trajectories of small data challenges in the PHM domain. This survey first elucidates the definition, causes, and impacts of small data on PHM tasks, and then analyzes the current mainstream approaches to solving small data problems, including data augmentation, transfer learning, and few-shot learning techniques, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. In addition, this survey summarizes benchmark datasets and experimental paradigms to facilitate fair evaluations of diverse methodologies under small data conditions. Finally, some promising directions are pointed out to inspire future research.
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