An evidential similarity-based regression method for the prediction of equipment remaining useful life in presence of incomplete degradation trajectories

Data-driven methods for direct prognostic map the relationship between monitored parameters and equipment Remaining Useful Life (RUL). They typically require the availability of a set of run-to-failure degradation trajectories for model training. Yet, in many industrial applications, equipment is often replaced before they fail to avoid catastrophic consequences on production and safety. Then also, incomplete degradation trajectories are available. In this work, we develop a method for predicting equipment RUL, and the related uncertainty based on both complete and incomplete degradation trajectories. The method is based on the combined use of a similarity measure and Evidence Theory (EvT). Application of the method on two case studies shows that it provides accurate RUL predictions, also in comparison with a similarity-based regression method of literature.