Mechanical Fault Sound Source Localization Estimation in a Multisource Strong Reverberation Environment

Aiming at the sound source localization of mechanical faults in a strong reverberation scenario with multiple sound sources, this paper investigates a mechanical fault source localization method using the U-net deep convolutional neural network. The method utilizes the SRP-PHAT algorithm to calculate the response power spectra of the collected multichannel fault signals. Through the utilization of the U-net neural network, the response power spectra containing spurious peaks are transformed into “clean” estimated source distribution maps. By employing interpolation search, the estimated source distribution maps are processed to obtain location estimations for multiple fault sources. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, this paper constructs an experimental dataset using mechanical fault data from electromechanical equipment relays and conducts sound source localization experiments. The experimental results show that the U-net network under 0.2 s/0.5 s/0.7 s reverberation time can effectively eliminate spurious peak interference in the response power spectrum. As the signal-to-noise ratio decreases, it can still distinguish the sound sources with a distance of 0.2 m. In the context of multifault source localization, the method is capable of simultaneously locating the positions of four fault sources, with an average localization error of less than 0.02 m. The method in this paper effectively eliminates spurious peaks in the response power spectra under conditions of multisource strong reverberation. It accurately locates multiple mechanical fault sources, thereby significantly enhancing the efficiency of mechanical fault detection.