Enhancing Acoustic Leak Detection with Data Augmentation: Overcoming Background Noise Challenges

A leak detection method is developed for leaks typically encountered in industrial production. Leaks of 1 mm diameter and less are considered at operating pressures up to 10 bar. The system uses two separate datasets—one for the leak noises and the other for the background noises—both are linked using a developed mixup technique and thus simulate leaks trained in background noises. A specific frequency window between 11 and 20 kHz is utilized to generate a quadratic input for image recognition. With this method, detection accuracies of over 95% with a false alarm rate under 2% can be achieved on a test dataset under the background noises of hydraulic machines in laboratory conditions.