Wireless Sensor-Embedded Leakage Flux and Vibration Measurement for Diagnosis of Electrical and Mechanical Faults in Induction Motors

There is a recent trend towards installing compact wireless sensors on the frame of industrial motors for remote online condition monitoring of the motor and driven system. With the increasing cost of labor and strict requirements for the safety of maintenance personnel, this allows maintenance to be performed in a safe manner at low cost. In this paper, a fault identification method based on a wireless sensor unit with an accelerometer and Hall sensor is presented. It is shown that electrical and mechanical defects in the motor, coupling, and load can be detected and classified based on spectral analysis of velocity and leakage flux. A comparative experimental evaluation of the proposed method and conventional MCSA is given under eccentricity, broken rotor bars, imbalance, misalignment, looseness, and bearing defect conditions, to show the viability of the wireless sensor. It is shown that the proposed method can provide superior fault identification performance compared to MCSA for inverter-fed induction motors.