Particle swarm optimization based RVM classifier for non-linear circuit fault diagnosis

A relevance vector machine (RVM) based fault diagnosis method was presented for non-linear circuits. In order to simplify RVM classifier, parameters selection based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) and preprocessing technique based on the kurtosis and entropy of signals were used. Firstly, sinusoidal inputs with different frequencies were applied to the circuit under test (CUT). Then, the resulting frequency responses were sampled to generate features. The frequency response was sampled to compute its kurtosis and entropy, which can show the information capacity of signal. By analyzing the output signals, the proposed method can detect and identify faulty components in circuits. The results indicate that the fault classes can be classified correctly for at least 99% of the test data in example circuit. And the proposed method can diagnose hard and soft faults.