This application claims priority to Taiwan Application Serial Number 103123810 filed Jul. 10, 2014, which is herein incorporated by reference.
1. Field of Disclosure
The present invention relates to a motor fault detecting mechanism. More particularly, the present invention relates to a motor fault detecting method and a motor fault detecting system for determining whether a motor is abnormal according to an impedance.
2. Description of Related Art
With the fast development of technology, a motor is widely used in heavy industry, semiconductor industry, auto industry, etc. In order to detect whether the motor is abnormal, information such as voltage and current of the motor is generally required to be sensed, and then signal processing is performed to achieve such detection. For example, a fast Fourier transform can be used to analyze frequency components of a signal, thereby determining whether the signal is abnormal. However, the fast Fourier transform is suitable for analyzing a periodic and stationary signal, but not suitable for some applications. In addition, a measured signal in the nature may include noises, and the noises may affect an accuracy of the detection. Therefore, it is an issue concerned by people in the art that how to effectively and quickly determine if the motor is abnormal.
Embodiments of the invention provide a motor fault detecting method and a motor fault detecting system that can detect whether a motor is abnormal quickly and effectively.
An embodiment of the invention provides a motor fault detecting method for inspecting a health state of a brushless motor. The motor fault detecting method includes the following steps. An electrical frequency of the brushless motor is obtained. Sensing current data of the brushless motor is obtained when the brushless motor is operating. An empirical mode decomposition (EMD) of a Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) is performed on the sensing current data to obtain intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). A feature IMF is obtained from the IMFs, in which the feature IMF is feature current data, and a frequency of the feature current data complies with the electrical frequency of the brushless motor. At least one electrical impedance is calculated according to an input voltage of the brushless motor and the feature current data. The at least one electrical impedance is compared with a reference electrical impedance to determine whether the brushless motor is abnormal. The reference electrical impedance is calculated according to training sensing current data of a training brushless motor which is in a healthy state.
An embodiment of the invention provides a motor fault detecting system including a brushless motor, a current sensing unit and a processor. The brushless motor includes an inverter and a motor. The current sensing unit is disposed between the inverter and the motor. The processor obtains an electrical frequency of the brushless motor, and obtains sensing current data of the brushless motor through the current sensing unit when the brushless motor is operating. The detecting module performs an empirical mode decomposition (EMD) of a Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) on the sensing current data to obtain intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), and obtains a feature IMF from the IMFs. The feature IMF is feature current data, and a frequency of the feature current data complies with the electrical frequency of the brushless motor. The processor calculates at least one electrical impedance according to an input voltage of the brushless motor and the feature current data, and compares the at least one electrical impedance with a reference electrical impedance to determine whether the brushless motor is abnormal. The reference electrical impedance is calculated according to training sensing current data of a training brushless motor which is in a healthy state.
In sum, in the motor fault detecting method and the motor fault detecting system provided in the embodiments of the invention, the electrical impedance is calculated by using the IMFs, and therefore whether the brushless motor is abnormal is effectively detected.
The invention can be more fully understood by reading the following detailed description of the embodiment, with reference made to the accompanying drawings as follows:
Specific embodiments of the present invention are further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings, however, the embodiments described are not intended to limit the present invention and it is not intended for the description of operation to limit the order of implementation. Moreover, any device with equivalent functions that is produced from a structure formed by a recombination of elements shall fall within the scope of the present invention. Additionally, the drawings are only illustrative and are not drawn to actual size.
In the embodiment, the power supply 110 provides direct current (DC) power to the brushless motor 120. In another embodiment, the power supply 110 may provide alternating current (AC) power to the brushless motor 120, but the invention is not limited thereto.
The brushless motor 120 includes an inverter 121 and a motor 122. In the embodiments, the inverter 121 is used to convert the DC power into AC power, and to drive the motor 122 according to the AC power. In another embodiment, if the power supply 110 provides AC power, then the brushless motor 120 further includes an converter (not shown) to the convert the AC power into DC power, and the inverter 121 converts the DC power outputted from the converter into AC power. In addition, the motor 122 is connected to a load 130, but the type of the load 130 is not limited in the invention.
The current sensing unit 140 is disposed between the inverter 121 and the motor 122, and used to sense line current on the inverter 121. For example, the current sensing unit 140 is a clamp meter, but the invention is not limited thereto.
The detecting device 150 obtains sensing current data of the brushless motor 120 through the current sensing unit 140 when the brushless motor 120 is operating. For example, the detecting device 150 obtains a current value through the current sensing unit 140 every once in a while. After a period of time, the current values constitute the aforementioned sensing current data. The detecting device 150 determines whether the brushless motor 120 is abnormal according to the sensing current data.
The detecting device 150 includes a detecting module 151 and a training module 152. In an embodiment, the detecting device 150 is implemented as a computer, and the detecting module 151 and the training module 152 are program codes executed by one or more processors (not shown) in the detecting device 150. However, in another embodiment, the detecting module 151 and the training module 152 may be implemented as circuits. The operations of the detecting module 151 and the training module 152 will be described below, but whether the detecting module 151 and the training module 152 are implemented as software or hardware is not limited in the invention. The invention does not limit the product or electrical device which the detecting device 150 is implemented as, either. In addition, in an embodiment, the detecting device 150 further includes a screen, and if the brushless motor 120 is in an abnormal state, the screen shows a corresponding message. Accordingly, a user can monitor the state of the brushless motor 120.
First, the detecting module 151 performs an empirical mode decomposition (EMD) of a Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) on the sensing current data to obtain intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). People in the art should be able to understand the content of the HHT and the EMD, and thus the content of the HHT and the EMD will not be described in detail herein. Basically, each IMF has to comply with two criteria. In the first criterion, the number of local extrema and the number of zero-crossings has to either equal or differ at most by one. In the second criterion, at any point of the IMF, the mean value of the envelope defined by the local maxima and the envelope defined by the local minima is zero. However, in the premise of complying the two criteria, the EMD can be modified in a variety of ways, and the invention is not limited to the specific algorithm of the EMD.
On the other hand, the detecting module 151 also obtains an electrical frequency of the brushless motor 120. In an embodiment, the detecting module 151 may calculate the electrical frequency according to a rotational speed and the number of poles of the brushless motor 120. For example, the detecting module 151 may obtain the electrical frequency according to the following equation (1), in which f denotes the electrical frequency of the brushless motor 120; p denotes the number of poles; ω denotes the rotational speed, and the unit thereof is radius per minute (RPM). In another embodiment, the electrical frequency of the brushless motor 120 may be calculated by another electrical device and then transmitted to the detecting module 151.
After obtaining the electrical frequency of the brushless motor 120, the detecting module 151 obtains a feature IMF from the IMFs 311 to 315 according to the electrical frequency. The feature IMF is feature current data, and a frequency of the feature current data complies with the electrical frequency of the brushless motor 120. In other words, the frequency of the feature IMF is equal to the main frequency of the brushless motor 120. For example, the detecting module 151 may perform a time-frequency transform on each of the IMFs 311 to 315 to obtain frequency information of the IMFs 311 to 315, and then select the feature IMF according to the frequency information and the electrical frequency of the brushless motor 120. The time-frequency transform may be a Fourier transform, a Hilbert transform or another similar transform, which is not limited in the invention. To be specific, if the Hilbert transform is used, then each IMF (denoted as Cj(t) below) is represented as the following equation (2):
where j denotes the number of the IMFs; t denotes time; RP[ ] denotes the calculation of a real part; aj(t) denotes an instant amplitude function; and fj(t) denotes an instant frequency function. If the time t is substituted into the instant amplitude function aj(t), then an instant amplitude of the IMF can be obtained, and an instant frequency of the IMF can be obtained by substituting the time t into the instant frequency function fj(t). The right-hand side of the equation (2) is also called a transforming function herein. From another aspect, the sensing current data 210 can be represented as the following equation (3), in which signal(t) denotes the sensing current data 210; n denotes the number of the IMFs; and r(t) denotes the residual function 316.
After the Hilbert transform is performed, the detecting module 151 substitutes different t into the instant frequency function fj(t) to obtain multiple instant frequencies, and obtains an average frequency of the instant frequencies. For example, in the embodiments of
Then, the detecting module 151 calculates at least one electrical impedance according to an input voltage of the brushless motor 120 and the aforementioned feature current data. Herein, the input voltage of the brushless motor 120 is referred to a DC voltage provided by the power supply 110. In the embodiment, the detecting module 151 obtains an instant amplitude of the IMF 315 according to the aforementioned instant amplitude function aj(t), and divides the input voltage of the brushless motor 120 by the instant amplitude to obtain the electrical impedance as shown in the following equation (4):
wherein Ze(t) denotes the electrical impedance; Vsource(t) denotes the input voltage of the brushless motor 120; amp[ ] denotes a function for calculating the amplitude; achar(t) denotes the instant amplitude function corresponding to the feature IMF 315; and fchar(t) denotes the instant frequency function corresponding to the feature IMF 315.
It is worth mentioning that, the sensing current data 210 in
Generally, the electrical impedance of a brushless motor which is in a healthy state keeps in a certain range, but the electrical impedance of an abnormal brushless motor may change rapidly. Therefore, the detecting module 151 then compare the calculated electrical impedance with a reference electrical impedance to determine whether the brushless motor 120 is abnormal, in which the reference electrical impedance is calculated according to training sensing current data of at least one training brushless motor which is in a healthy state. For example, similar to the structure of
In another embodiment, the detecting module 151 calculates corresponding electrical impedances at several sampling time points (i.e. the number of the electrical impedance Ze(t) of the brushless motor 120 is greater than 1). In the operation of comparing the electrical impedance with the reference electrical impedance, the detecting module 151 calculates a root mean square impedance of the electrical impedances, and compares the root mean square impedance with the reference electrical impedance to determine whether the brushless motor 120 is abnormal. Note that the detecting module 151 can arbitrarily decides the number of the sampling time points, which is not limited in the invention. Moreover, the detecting module 151 may also repeat the calculation of the root mean square impedance, and compare the average value of the root mean square impedances with the reference electrical impedance.
In an embodiment, the training module 152 calculates the reference electrical impedance according to the way of calculating the aforementioned root mean square impedance. In detail, training module 152 calculates the electrical frequency of the training brushless motor according to a rotational speed and the number of poles of the training brushless motor. The training module 152 also performs the EMD of the HHT on the training sensing current data to obtain training IMFs (see equation (3) discussed above). The training module 152 also obtains a training feature IMF from the training IMFs. The training feature IMF is training feature current data, and a frequency of the training feature current data complies with the electrical frequency of the training brushless motor. Finally, the training module 152 calculates several training electrical impedances according to the input voltage of the training brushless motor and the training feature current data, and generates the reference electrical impedance according to a root mean square impedance of the training electrical impedances. However, the calculations of the EMD, the IMFs, and the electrical impedances have been described in detail above, and therefore they will not be repeated.
In an embodiment, there are more than one training brushless motors, and the training brushless motors have identical rotational speeds and identical numbers of poles. For each of the training brushless motors, the training module 152 obtains the corresponding root mean square impedance. The training module 152 may calculates an average value of the root mean square impedances as the reference electrical impedance.
In addition, training module 152 may also perform a test of gauge repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) to determine whether a training stage is finished. In general, after the test of GR&R is performed, the training module 152 obtains a precision tolerance ratio (P/T ratio). If the P/T ratio is smaller than a threshold (e.g. 30%), it means the training result is acceptable; if not, the training module 152 re-obtains the training sensing current data, and re-calculates the reference electrical impedance.
On the other hand, because the rotational speed of the training brushless motor is identical to the rotational speed of the brushless motor 120, the calculated electrical frequencies of the motors are the same. Therefore, after the EMD is performed, the detecting module 151 and the training module 152 obtains the feature IMF having the same frequency. In an embodiment, the training module 152 obtains a training number of the training feature IMF among the training IMFs, and transmits the training number to the detecting module 151. The detecting module 151 finds the feature IMF from the IMFs according to the training number. For example, in the embodiment of
In a step S411, information such as input voltage, a rotational speed and training sensing current data of the training brushless motor is collected. In a step S412, the EMD is performed on the training sensing current data to obtain training IMFs. In a step S413, the Hilbert transform is performed on the training IMFs to obtain instant frequencies and instant amplitudes. In a step S414, the electrical frequency of the training brushless motor is calculated according to the rotational speed and the number of the poles of the training brushless motor, and one of the training IMF is taken as the training feature IMF. In a step S415, a training electrical impedance or a root mean square impedance is calculated according to the instant amplitudes of the training feature IMF and the input voltage. In a step S416, it is determined whether to repeat the steps S411 to S415. For example, the training module 152 may repeat the steps S411 to S415 for several times, thereby obtaining several root mean square impedances. In a step S417, the test of GR&R is performed to generate a PIT ratio. In a step S418, whether the result is acceptable is determined. To be specific, if the P/T ratio is smaller than a threshold, then the result is acceptable; but if the P/T ratio is greater or equal to the threshold, the result is not acceptable.
In a step S441, information such as sensing current data, a rotational speed and an input voltage of the brushless motor 120 is collected. In a step S442, EMD is performed on the sensing current data to obtain IMFs. In a step S443, the Hilbert transform is performed on the IMFs to obtain instant frequencies and instant amplitudes. In a step S444, a feature IMF is obtained from the IMFs according to the training number. In a step S445, an electrical impedance is calculated according to the input voltage and the instant amplitude of the feature IMF. In a step S446, the calculated electrical impedance is compared with the reference electrical impedance so as to determine whether the brushless motor 120 is abnormal. In a step S447, it is determined whether to repeat the steps S441 to S446. For example, the training module 152 may repeat the steps S441 to S446 for several times to confirm whether the brushless motor 120 is abnormal.
Referring to
Although the present invention has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain embodiments thereof, other embodiments are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the embodiments contained herein. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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103123810 | Jul 2014 | TW | national |