A data enhancement method based on generative adversarial network for small sample-size with soft sensor application

Soft sensor plays an important role in improving product quality; however, practical applications may often face with the problem of small sample size, which is challenging for developing data-driven models in terms of feature selection and good generalization. This paper proposes a data enhancement approach for small sample size data-driven problems based on generative adversarial networks integrated with maximum relevance minimum redundancy (MRMR). First, sample expansion is performed on the initial data by using a generative adversarial network. Second, irrelevant variables are eliminated by the MRMR and optimal features are obtained. Finally, neural networks-based soft sensor modeling is performed using the augmented dataset and the selected features. The proposed method is tested on a simulated penicillin case, an actual penicillin production case and an actual erythromycin production case. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art existing methods, which verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.