Health Monitoring of Wind Turbine Blades through
Vibration Signal Using Advanced Signal Processing
Techniques
2020 Advanced Communication Technologies and Signal Processing (ACTS) | 978-1-7281-7097-8/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ACTS49415.2020.9350405
Sudarsan Sahoo Kuldeep Kushwah
Department of E & I Engg. Department of E & I Engg.
NIT Silchar NIT Silchar
Silchar, India Silchar, India
sudarsan_iisc@yahoo.in kushwahkuldeepkd@gmail.com
Abstract— Wind turbines are used for the transformation of
wind energy into electrical energy with the help of rotating
blades connected to the generator. The blades of the wind
turbine play an important role since these are used for the
conversion of kinetic energy into electrical energy. The blades
of the wind turbine experience severe vibrations due to adverse
environmental conditions, huge size, variation in wind speeds,
and continuous operation throughout. These vibrations lead to
serious damage to the turbine resulting in the reduction of its
productivity and may lead to failure in the future. The faults
must be recognized at the early stage so that energy conversion
is not affected. Therefore, effective health monitoring and fault
diagnosis are important for evading severe damage to the wind
turbines. The identification of faults in any system requires
physical knowledge of the parts which are not readily available
every time. Hence data-driven models are used for
classification and diagnosis of faults. The present work aims to
diagnose the faults in a wind turbine blade using vibration
signals as the measured signal which is acquired from the
hardware setup and classify the faults using different machine
learning techniques and then the performance of the classifiers
are compared. The experimental work is carried out using a
wind turbine set-up by introducing the different conditions of
the blades i.e. healthy and defective blades. To find the
suitability of the proposed method, the signal acquisition is
done at three different speeds using a suitable instrumentation
system. The required statistical parameters are extracted from
the measured vibration signals. Then three different machine
learning classifiers are applied for the classification of faults.
The performances of the classifiers are evaluated in terms of
the percentage of accuracy from the confusion matrix. The
proposed work shows that the machine learning technique is a
good approach for wind turbine fault classification and the
vibration signal is a good choice as a measuring signal for the
detection and diagnosis of the faults in wind turbine blades.
Keywords—Wind Turbine, Health Monitoring, Fault
Diagnosis, Machine Learning, Statistical Features, Confusion
Matrix.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the modern era, the development of wind turbines had
been very fast due to advancements in technology and at the
same time, it has given a few obstacles. It is essential to
sustain the healthful state of the operating turbine to maintain
its efficiency. There is a continuous requirement to lessen the
operation and maintenance costs [1, 2]. Hence, identification
of defects/malfunctions at an early stage is important to
decrease the shutdown and productivity can also be
increased. Wind turbines are used for the transformation of
wind energy into electrical energy with the help of rotating
blades connected to the generator. The blades are considered
978-1-7281-7097-8/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
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Arun Kumar Sunaniya
Department of E & I Engg.
NIT Silchar
Silchar, India
arun.sunaniya@gmail.com
to be an important part of the wind turbine because of its
huge structure and has a major role in the energy conversion
mechanism [3]. The price of blades in the wind turbine can
reach up to 15–20% of the whole setup. The blades are
exposed to the environment therefore blades are subjected to
various faults due to different environmental conditions and
huge structures. The vibration caused in blades due to
different wind speed, interaction with foreign particles and
various environmental changes (rain, snowfall, etc.) results in
slow rotation or even failure of the turbine which affects the
overall production and may cause a shutdown. The vibration
of the blades is tough to evaluate on-line due to the huge
structure, various operating conditions and the remote
location of the wind turbines [4, 5].
Every rotating element carries its vibration and acoustic
signatures in its healthy condition. But when a defect occurs
in it then a variation appears in its vibration and acoustic
signatures. This variation can be observed in time and
frequency analysis [6, 7]. Vibration and acoustic signal
processing are some of the vividly used ways to detect and
diagnose the different machine faults. In some literature, it is
found the use of wavelet transform or time-frequency
analysis and adaptive wavelet transform to diagnose the
bearing fault [8, 9]. Some literature introduces the signal
strength improvement techniques using an active noise
cancellation (ANC) technique [10]. Andrew Kusiak et al.
shows blade pitch fault monitoring in wind turbines [11].
In current scenario, machine learning techniques are
widely used to diagnose different types of machine faults.
Therefore, a proper signature of faults is essential which
allows us to move forward in the fault classification, results
in a better and accurate fault diagnosis of the machine
elements [12, 13].
In the proposed work, one healthy blade and three
defective blades are used for the experimental work and
vibration signal is used as a measuring parameter for the
diagnosis of faults in wind turbine blades. The
instrumentation setup for the experiment is developed. Then
from the instrumentation setup the measured vibration signals
are acquired. The required statistical features are extracted
from those vibration signals. The machine learning classifiers
are trained by this evaluated statistical features. The machine
learning classifiers used in this work for the fault
classification are k-nearest neighbour (KNN), support vector
machine (SVM) and decision tree. The performance
comparisons of different classifiers are presented in terms of
accuracy depicted from the confusion matrix. The proposed
work aims to determine whether the blades of the wind
turbine are in a good mode of operation or in a defective
condition and then diagnose the faults in blades if it is
defective. The work flow of the present work is shown in
figure 1.

Development of an Instrumentation Setup

Vibration Signal Acquisition

Feature Extraction: Statistical Analysis

Model Training Using Machine Learning

Techniques Fig. 2. Experimental Setup

Model Accuracy Comparison Using Confusion

Matrix

Fig. 1. Flow of work

II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Fig. 3. Healthy Blade (type-0 fault)
The proposed work was performed using a 50W, 12V
variable speed wind turbine generator. It was installed on a
hardened galvanized iron platform against the wind source
having an exit of around 1000mm. The velocity of the wind
source is ranging from 5m/s to 15 m/s which is used to rotate
the turbine. The turbine was set to run at three different
speeds for the data acquisition. The experimental setup is
shown in figure 2. For the acquisition of vibration signals, a
multi channels IEPE Adapter and Data Acquisition model-
WS-4601/U2-8 is used. The piezoelectric accelerometers
were fixed on the turbine near the hub. The accelerometers Fig. 4. Bend Blade (type-1 fault)
used were IEPE accelerometers (Model- NAWS-19C and
NAWS-20C) having a resonating frequency of 30 KHz and
sensitivity of 100mV/g (NAWS-19C) and 500mV/g (NAWS-
20C). The IEPE accelerometer is connected by TNC-2 BNC
cable with a sturdy and durable connection. The software
used for the experimental work is WS-DAQ data acquisition
software and MATLAB.

III. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

A horizontal axis wind turbine having 3 blades was used Fig. 5. Crack Blade (type-2 fault)
to carry out the experiment. At the initial stage, the vibration
signals were acquired from the wind turbine when it is in its
healthy condition, i.e. free from all defects. The vibration
signals are acquired using an accelerometer with the
sampling frequency of 12 KHz. A sample length of 8192 was
selected. For each condition of the blade minimum 100
samples were taken.
In the next stage, the defective blades were used one at a
time for acquiring the corresponding vibration signals as per
the specifications mentioned above. The healthy and
defective blades used in the experiment are shown in figure 3 Fig. 6. Erosion Blade (type-3 fault)
to figure 6.

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 IV. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS TABLE II. STATISTICAL PARAMETER COMPARISON FOR VIBRATION
SIGNAL AT 600 RPM
The statistical parameters are computed from vibration
Sl. Static Healthy Blade Blade Blade
signals acquired from the healthy and defective blades by No Parameters Blade Bend Crack Erosion
using the following mathematical formulas: . (Type- 0) (Type-1) (Type-2) Type- 3)
1. Mean 2.0347 8.4520 1.1318 6.8783
 Mean 𝜇 = ∑ 𝑋 
2. Standard 2.6399 3.0260 3.2048 4.1151
deviation
3. Root mean 2.6476 3.1747 3.3986 4.1720
 Standard Deviation = ∑ (𝑋 − 𝜇)   square
4. Sum .02035 .8452 1.1318 .6878

5. Mode 4.8578 9.2298 8.7440 2.9147

 𝑅𝑀𝑆 = ∑ (𝑋 − 𝜇)  
6. Range .0043 .0068 .0079 .0116
 𝑆𝑢𝑚 = ∑ 𝑋  7. Minimum -.0021 -.0034 -.0034 -.0067

8. Maximum .0022 .0035 .0045 .0050

 Mode = 3(median)-2(mean) 
9. Skewness .0477 -.2285 .5807 -1.0402
 Range = maximum value – minimum value  10. Kurtosis 6.0368 17.6059 26.0439 47.6942

 Minimum = smallest value  11. Variance 6.9690 9.1569 1.0271 1.6934

12. Crest Factor 8.2755 11.0258 13.1788 11.8768

 Maximum = largest value 
TABLE III. STATISTICAL PARAMETER COMPARISON FOR VIBRATION
∑ ( ) SIGNAL AT 700 RPM
 Skewness  
Sl. Static Healthy Blade Blade Blade
No Parameters Blade Bend Crack Erosion
∑ ( )
 Kurtosis =   . (Type- 0) (Type-1) (Type-2) Type- 3)

1. Mean 4.5849 8.6502 1.0173 1.0085

∑ ( )
 Variance σ =   2. Standard 3.8211 3.4509 3.1012 3.1784
deviation
3. Root mean 3.8483 3.5575 3.2636 3.3344
 Crest FactorC =   square
4. Sum .4585 .8650 1.0173 1.0085

 5. Mode 1.1200 1.4100 9.7156 1.6000

6. Range .0100 .0089 .0085 .0056

TABLE I. STATISTICAL PARAMETER COMPARISON FOR VIBRATION
SIGNAL AT 500 RPM 7. Minimum -.0047 -.0037 -.0041 -.0031
Sl. Static Healthy Blade Blade Blade
8. Maximum .0053 .0052 .0044 .0025
No Parameters Blade Bend Crack Erosion
. (Type- 0) (Type-1) (Type-2) Type- 3) 9. Skewness .4655 1.0083 .0737 .0418
1. Mean 8.9501 8.7065 1.0633 7.3214 10. Kurtosis 31.6013 33.7253 22.1594 11.6717
2. Standard 2.6388 3.0589 2.6577 3.1863 11. Variance 1.4601 1.1908 9.6174 1.0102
deviation
3. Root mean 2.7864 3.1803 2.8624 3.2692 12. Crest Factor 13.6709 14.7071 13.4421 7.5306
square
4. Sum .8950 .8707 1.0633 .7321

5. Mode 1.2600 -9.715 1.0700 1.6000

6. Range .0044 .0080 .0034 .0063

7. Minimum -.0019 -.0038 -.0014 -.0035

8. Maximum .0025 .0042 .0021 .0027

9. Skewness .1104 .4668 .1432 -.4614

10. Kurtosis 7.5419 36.6926 4.7136 17.4153

11. Variance 6.9635 9.3569 7.0636 1.0153

12. Crest Factor 8.9435 13.1813 7.1792 8.2925

 Fig. 7. Acquired vibration signal from different blades at 500rpm

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Fig. 8. Acquired vibration signal from different blades at 600rpm

Fig. 10. Accuracy opted using KNN Classifier

Fig. 9. Acquired vibration signal from different blades at 700rpm

V. RESULTS
Fig. 11. Accuracy opted using Decision Tree Classifier

The results are evaluated at different speeds of the

rotating turbine and are shown below in the form of
confusion matrix. The accuracy is given by:
% Accuracy = [(TN + TP)/ (TN + FP + FN + TP)] x100

A. Results demonstrated using Confusion Matrix at speed of

500rpm
It is reflected from figure 10, figure 11 and figure 12 that
the KNN, decision tree & SVM classifiers can diagnose the
blade faults very efficiently. But the model formed using
SVM classifier gives highest accuracy of 77.5% for fault
classification among all the classifiers. The comparison
between the different classifiers is tabulated in Table IV.

TABLE IV. OF PERCENTAGE MODEL ACCURACY OFFERED BY THE Fig. 12. Accuracy opted using SVM Classifier
DIFFERENT CLASSIFIER ALGORITHM (500 RPM)

Sl. No Classifier % Model B. Results demonstrated using Confusion Matrix at speed of

Algorithm Used Accuracy 600rpm
1. K-nearest neighbor
It is reflected from figure 13, figure 14 and figure 15 that
66.30
the KNN, decision tree & SVM classifiers can diagnose the
2. Decision Tree 66.80 blade faults very efficiently. But the model formed using
SVM classifier gives highest accuracy of 82% for fault
3. Linear SVM 77.5 classification among all the classifiers. The comparison
between the different classifiers is tabulated in Table V.

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 TABLE V. COMPARISON OF PERCENTAGE MODEL ACCURACY
OFFERED BY THE DIFFERENT CLASSIFIER ALGORITHM (600 RPM)
Sl. No Classifier % Model
Algorithm Used Accuracy

1. K-nearest neighbor 77.00

2. Decision Tree 79.80

3. Linear SVM 82.00

C. Results demonstrated using Confusion Matrix at speed of

Fig. 13. Accuracy opted using KNN Classifier
700rpm
It is reflected from figure 9, figure 10 and figure 11 that
the KNN, decision tree & SVM classifiers can diagnose the
blade faults very efficiently. But the model formed using
SVM classifier gives highest accuracy of 87% for fault
classification among all the classifiers. The comparison
between the different classifiers is tabulated in Table VI.

Fig. 14. Accuracy opted using Decision Tree Classifier

Fig. 16. Accuracy opted using KNN Classifier

Fig. 17. Accuracy opted using Decision Tree Classifier

Fig. 15. Accuracy opted using SVM Classifier

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 adopted for the health monitoring of a wind turbine blade to
decrease the turbine shutdown and to increase the overall
productivity.
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