SICE Annual Conference 2008

August 20-22, 2008, The University Electro-Communications, Japan

Online Fault Detection and Diagnosis Algorithm

based on Probabilistic Model for Induction Machines

Hyun Cheol Cho1, Kwang Su Kim2, Chang Hwan Song3, Young Jin Lee4, and Kwon Soon Lee5

Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Dong-A Univ., 840 Hadan 2-dong, Saha-gu, Busan, S. Korea 604-714
1
hyunccho@gmail.com, 2 kim-kwang-su-2@hanmail.net, 3 hwanny77@hotmail.com
4
airlee011@hanmail.net, 5 kslee@dau.ac.kr

Abstract: This paper presents stochastic fault detection algorithm for induction motor systems. We measure the current
of a healthy induction motor by means of a Hall sensor and then determine its probability distribution. We propose a
recursive probability density estimation algorithm suitable for real-time experimental implementation due to its
simplicity and low computational load. We apply our fault detection approach to three-phase induction motors and
obtain real-time experimental results that demonstrate its reliability and practicability.

Keywords: fault detection/diagnosis, induction motor, probabilistic model, probability density estimation

1. INTRODUCTION order statistics, require complicated mathematical

Induction motors are widely used in many industrial
applications, including large systems where the faults
can cause huge economic losses if not promptly
detected and diagnosed. Fault detection and diagnosis
(FDD) methodologies are the subject of active research
[1][2]. Approaches to FDD in induction motors include
those based on signal processing without the use of
system models and those based on models that mimic
the behavior of a healthy system.
The most popular approach for FDD in industrial
motors is motor current signature analysis (MCSA). The
method uses the frequency spectrum of motor current
measurements, usually obtained using the fast Fourier
transform (FFT) technique [3][4]. Alternatively, more
advanced signal processing techniques such as wavelet
transform [5], time-frequency analysis [6], higher-order
spectra analysis [7], etc., are used to analyze the motor
current.
In [8], Lee et al. integrated the FFT and wavelet
algorithms for induction motor fault classification.
Jimenez et al. used the Hilbert transform to extract the
envelope of the signal spectrum [9]. The envelope was
pre-multiplied by a window to overcome transient
distortion in wavelet based fault detection and improve
the reliability for a very fast system response. Blodt et al.
[10] applied the Wigner distribution to represent a motor
signal in both the time and frequency domains for its
online condition monitoring. Aryhur and Penman [11]
investigated the use of higher-order spectra for fault
detection in induction machines without requirement of
prior data for modeling.
In general, signal processing approaches often have
two disadvantages. Some algorithms, such as those used
to estimate spectral densities and those based on high
procedures and are not suitable for real-time
implementation. In addition, the high cost of the
high-speed computational devices needed to realize the
theoretically obtained results makes the utilization of
signal based FDD rare in practical applications.
FDD approaches based on modeling normal (healthy)
motor behavior use the model to obtain the predicted
system output. The difference between the model output
and measurements from the motor gives a residual
signal that is used for FDD. Combastel et al. developed
an online model based wavelet algorithm for fault
detection of time-varying parameterized motors and
constructed a hierarchical fault model for fault diagnosis
in [12]. Several types of models are used for this
purpose including: ARMA models, polynomial models,
linear observers, etc [2]. Recently, soft computing
methodologies such as neural networks [13] and fuzzy
logic [14], have been successfully used in modeling for
FDD. Models based on these approaches have been
particularly useful for FDD with nonlinear, time-varying,
and stochastic systems.
Recently, soft computation methods, such as neural
network and fuzzy logic, have been proposed for
monitoring conditions of induction motor systems. The
approach is suited to nonlinear and time-varying
dynamic systems. Soft computation algorithms for FDD
systems potentially provides simple mathematical
procedure to derive FDD scheme and enables to be
improved its performance. Generally, in fuzzy theory
based FDD, fuzzy rule base is significantly used for
system modeling and decision making [15]-[18]. Neural
networks are also applied for modeling of nonlinear
dynamic system in particular through learning
procedure. Several neural network types were employed
including: radial basis networks [19], recurrent dynamic

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PR0001/08/0000-1380 ¥400 © 2008 SICE
networks [20], self organizing maps [21], and modified probability density estimation of the system state
back-propagation neural model [22]. sequence. Fig. 2 illustrates the concept of this fault
Since FDD is based on the predicted behavior of the detection configuration. Here, a probabilistic model
system based on its mathematical model, the model p(x*) constructed from healthy system is compared to
must accurately represent the behavior of the system. In that of an actual system p(x) to generate the residual
most model based FDD applications, the measurements signal ]p similarly. We modify the hypothesis testing in
are treated as deterministic signals. In practice, (1) to accommodate this stochastic fault detection
measurements typically include additive noise, which is scheme as
non-Gaussian and nonstationary for nonlinear ­° H 0 : no fault , if ] p  rp
time-varying systems. Hence, deterministic FDD ® (2)
methods are ineffective for such applications. °̄ H1 : fault , otherwise
This paper presents a stochastic FDD methodology where rp  (0,1) and ]p = p(x*)  p(x). To apply the
for induction motor systems. We construct a stochastic hypothesis testing of (2) we must first determine the
model using the motor current measured by means of a probability density model from system state sequence
Hall sensor. This model is used to generate residue by by means of online estimation.
comparing to probability distribution of an actual
system and decision making for FDD is carried out x* (t )
through binary hypothesis testing. We propose a System model
recursive probability density estimation algorithm
input
suitable for real-time implementation due to its low ] (t )
computational load. In addition, we prove the 
convergence and stability of the proposed estimation Actual system
x (t )
algorithm. We apply our FDD method to three-phase
induction motors and test its reliability and
practicability through our real-time experiment. Fig. 1 A block diagram of model based fault detection
This paper is organized as following: We provide a method.
review of the literature on FDD methods for induction
p ( x* )
motor systems in Section 2. We present probabilistic
Probabilistic model
model based FDD algorithm and recursive probability
density estimation in Section 3. Real-time experiment
]p
and its result for induction motor FDD are presented in 
Section 4. Conclusions and future work are given in input Probability density
Actual system
Section 5. x(t ) estimation p (x)

2. PROBABILISTIC MODEL BASED FDD
Fig. 1 shows a block diagram of a typical model
based fault detection scheme. Here, the modeling
deviation ] is obtained from the difference between the
model state x*(t) and the actual system state x(t), i.e. ] =
x*  x. A simple decision making rule for fault detection
is the binary hypothesis testing as
°­ H 0 : no fault , if ]  r
® (1)
°̄ H 1 : fault , otherwise
where r > 0. In (1), hypothesis H0 involves healthy
system state when the residual is less than a predefined
threshold r. By contrast, hypothesis H1 is regarded that
possible fault is occurred in systems when it is greater
than or equal to threshold.
In general, practical systems include inherently
random signals due to noise in real-time
implementations. It is often reported that a deterministic
fault detection scheme is unsatisfactory or unreliable in
practical applications. Moreover, since the complexity
Fig. 2 Stochastic model based fault detection scheme.
3. RECURSIVE PROBABILITY DENSITY
ESTIMATION
Probability density estimation is an important signal
processing problem [23]. Although several estimation
algorithms have been proposed, the most popular
algorithm is the relative-frequency approach because it
can be easily implemented. In this scheme, the
frequency of occurrence for any given state is assigned
a probability which is then estimated from experimental
data. Consider a discrete state vector x(k) given as a set
with n elements as
x(k ) ^x1 , x2 ,  , xn ` (3)
and its probability distribution is expressed by
p( x(k )) ^p( x1 ), p ( x2 ),, p ( xn )` (4)
where according to probability axiom this random
vector is constraint as
n

of modern industrial systems is progressively increasing, ¦ p( x )i 1 (5)

they require more reliable fault detection methodologies. i 1
One possible scheme is to seek such objective is In (4) any state probability p(xi) is defined as the
stochastic theory based fault detection algorithm. The number of times that a state xi occurs per unit time in the
main issue in such innovative algorithm is online discrete time interval [kk0] where k0 and k are the

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initial and current time points respectively. Hence, we
have the probability estimate
N ( xi )
p( xi ) , i  [1, n] (6)
k  k0
where N(xi) is number of times xi occurs in [kk0] and k0
< k. The computation of (6) is quite simple. However,
large quantities of data are required to obtain a reliable
estimate. In addition, the computation of p(xi) becomes
unreliable as the time interval increases and overflow
errors may result. Thus, computational errors eventually
make the fault detection becomes unreliable. To
overcome this problem we modify the estimation
algorithm to a recursive framework. First, we define any
probability as
pi (k ) Umi (k ), i  [1, n] (7)
where pi(k) { p(xi) for simplicity, mi(k) is likelihood of
xi(k) and U is given as a normalizing coefficient to
satisfy the constraint in (6). A likelihood variable mi(k)
in (7) is dependent on the current observation, expressed
in recursive form as
§ k 1 · 1 the healthy motor in Fig. 4(a). Fig. 5 shows the
mi (k ) ¨ ¸mi (k )  ] i (k ) (8)
© k ¹ k
where ]i(k) is an optional parameter based on
observation sequence. Explicitly, ]i(k) is selected as a
non-negative constant c if the current state is observed
as xi, otherwise ]i(k) is zero. This rule is expressed
mathematically as
­c, if x(k ) xi
] i (k ) ® (9)
¯0, otherwise
In summary, the likelihood in (8) is updated by the
previous likelihood and the current observation, and
then normalized to calculate the probability distribution.
Obviously, this algorithm is easily implemented and its
reduced computational load makes is suitable for
on-line computation.
4. REAL-TIME EXPERIMENT OF THE
INDUCTION MOTOR FDD
We apply the proposed FDD algorithm to three-phase
induction motor systems to demonstrate its reliability.
The specifications of the applied motor are as follows:
rated power is 10 hp, rated stator voltage is 220 voltages
per phase, rated stator current is 32 Ampere per phase,
rate frequency is 60 Hz, and rate speed is 1760 rpm.
Fig. 3 shows the FDD test-bed for induction motor
systems. The induction motor is operated and controlled
by inverter systems, and each phase current of the motor
is measured by means of a Hall sensor. This signal is
propagated to a PC through an interface board. The
proposed algorithm is programmed with Matlab©
software on a PC where the actual probability
distribution for the state signal is calculated online and
compared to a pre-selected probability distribution to
create the residual signal.
We use three induction motors with the same
specifications under identical experimental conditions.
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The first is a healthy motor while the other two motors
are faulty in the stator winding and the bearing
respectively. The stator winding fault is an electric
fault and the bearing fault is a mechanical fault.
Prior to estimating the probability distribution of the
state, we first obtain the motor current sequence through
a digital data acquisition system (0.01 sec sampling
time) during 60 sec. Fig. 4 shows plots of the current
measurements for each motor where we observe that the
healthy motor current is almost sinusoidal while the
others are not. Next, we discretize the continuous
current signal as
x(k ) ^x1 , x2 ,  , x8 ` (10)
with
x1 ^x | x ! 3` , x2 ^x | 2  x d 3`
x3 ^x | 1  x d 2` , x4 ^x | 0  x d 1`
x5 ^x | 1  x d 0` , x6 ^x | 2  x d 1`
x7 ^x | 3  x d 2` , x8 ^x | x d 3`
First, we utilize our probability density estimator to
construct a stochastic model for the current sequence of
probability distributions for each phase of the motor.
This result demonstrates that the distributions are almost
identical since each current waveform is the same as
shown in Fig. 4(a). Next, Figs. 6 and 7 are plots of the
histories of the residual for each phase of the two faulty
motors. In Fig. 6 a large transient error is followed by
convergence with steady-state error of about 0.72, 0.58,
and 0.18% for phases A, B, and C, respectively.
Similarly, in Fig. 7 the residual signals have about 0.87,
0.81, and 0.78% in the steady-state for phases A, B, and
C, respectively. The latter is larger on the average than
the former, which indicates that the bearing fault of the
motor is more easily detected than the stator winding
fault.
5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a FDD methodology for
induction motor systems based on online probability
density estimation. To construct a probabilistic model of
the healthy motor, we use a Hall sensor to measure the
current and estimate its probability distributions using
our proposed estimation algorithm. The estimation
algorithm is recursive making it suitable for real-time
implementation. The current signal of the faulty motor
is propagated to a PC where our FDD algorithm is
programmed in Matlab© code, and then its discrete
probability distribution is estimated. By comparing the
actual distribution to the stochastic model of the healthy
motor, we experimentally obtain the residual signal in
real time. Future work includes a microprocessor based
FDD test-bed of this mechanism for practical
implementation in industrial application.
 2
phase a
1.8 phase b
phase c
1.6

1.4

Residual signal
1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
time(sec)

Fig. 6 The residual signal for faulty stator.

2
phase a
phase b
Fig. 3 Appearance of the test-bed for induction motor
1.8
phase c

fault detection and diagnosis. 1.6

1.4

(a)
Residual signal

1.2
4

2 phase a
current

phase b 1
0
phase c
-2 0.8

-4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0.6
time(sec)
(b)
5 0.4
phase a
current

0
phase b 0.2
phase c
0
-5 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
time(sec)
time(sec)
(c)
4
phase a
Fig. 7 The residual signal for faulty bearing.
2
current

phase b
0
phase c
-2

-4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
time(sec)

(a) Healthy motor (b) Faulty stator (c) Faulty bearing This research was supported by KEPCO grant
Fig. 4 Current waveform of the induction motors. 2006-0273.

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