Remaining useful life prediction method for jointless track circuits based on multivariate feature fusion and nonlinear Wiener process

Abstract Predicting the remaining useful life (RUL) of track circuits is essential to ensure the safe and reliable operation of high-speed railways. In response to the challenges faced by current machine-learning-based RUL prediction methods, which struggle to represent the uncertainty in the probability distribution of RUL predictions, this paper suggests a hybrid-driven method for estimating remaining life. Firstly, the track circuit Health Index is constructed by feature dimensionality reduction and fusion of the original multivariate monitoring data through kernel principal component analysis and Autoencoder; Secondly, the degraded state of the rail circuit is modelled using a nonlinear Wiener degradation model. Finally, the principle of first hitting time is used to derive the probability density function of the anticipated RUL. The efficacy and superiority of the approach presented in this paper are validated by experimental research on the track circuit monitoring dataset. The method enhances forecast accuracy and reduces prediction uncertainty, offering robust technical support for track circuit maintenance decision-making.