To accurately predict the remaining useful life (RUL) of rotating machinery while continuously providing the task data, a novel continuous RUL prediction methodology was proposed. The methodology comprises a self-guided attention convolutional neural network (SGACNN) and memory consciousness adjustment (MCA) mechanism. First, a multihead focal channel-wise self-attention (MFCWSA) mechanism was implemented to effectively capture the degradation information across all the channels and achieve the attentional focus. Next, the SGACNN was constructed using the MFCWSA, squeeze-and-excitation mechanism, and convolutional block attention module. A new network gradient direction was synthesized by leveraging the gradients from both the previous task and the current task. Further, a weight constraint loss term based on the gradient magnitude was designed to constrain the learning process of important parameters. With the new network gradient direction and weight constraint loss, a novel MCA mechanism was proposed and integrated into the SGACNN for implementing the continuous RUL prediction tasks. Finally, various RUL prediction experiments on the life-cycle bearing and gear data sets were carried out, and its outcomes were compared to those of the advanced methods of the same kind. The comparative results validated the superiority of the proposed methodology.

In the mechatronic system, rolling bearing is a frequently used mechanical part, and its failure may result in serious accident and major economic loss. Therefore, the remaining useful life (RUL) prediction of rolling bearing is greatly indispensable. To accurately predict the RUL of the rolling bearing, a new kind of gated recurrent unit neural network with dual attention gates, namely, gated dual attention unit (GDAU), is proposed. With the acquired life-cycle vibration data of a rolling bearing, a series of root mean squares at different time instants are calculated as the health indicator (HI) vector. Next, the to-be HI sequence is predicted by GDAU according to the existing HI vector, and then the RUL of the rolling bearing is estimated. The experimental results show that the proposed GDAU can effectively predict the RULs of rolling bearings, and it has higher prediction accuracy and convergence speed than the conventional prediction methods.