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Inter-turn Fault Detection of Induction Motors Using a Method Based on

Spectrogram of Motor Currents

Teymoor Ghanbari, Abbas Mehraban, Ebrahim Farjah

PII: S0263-2241(22)01376-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2022.112180
Reference: MEASUR 112180

To appear in: Measurement

Received Date: 14 July 2022

Revised Date: 16 October 2022
Accepted Date: 3 November 2022

Please cite this article as: T. Ghanbari, A. Mehraban, E. Farjah, Inter-turn Fault Detection of Induction Motors
Using a Method Based on Spectrogram of Motor Currents, Measurement (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.measurement.2022.112180

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Inter-turn Fault Detection of Induction Motors Using
a Method Based on Spectrogram of Motor Currents
Teymoor Ghanbari a,*, Abbas Mehrabanb, and Ebrahim Farjahb
aSchool of Advanced Technologies, Shiraz University, Eram Square, Shiraz, Iran
b School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Shiraz University, Zand Street, Shiraz, Iran
 Inter-turn Fault Detection of Induction Motors Using
a Method Based on Spectrogram of Motor Currents
Teymoor Ghanbari a,*, Abbas Mehrabanb, and Ebrahim Farjahb
aSchool of Advanced Technologies, Shiraz University, Eram Square, Shiraz, Iran
b School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Shiraz University, Zand Street, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract— Steady-state signatures seem more reliable
than incipient fault signatures for detection of inter-turn
short circuit (ITSC) fault in induction motors (IMs). An
efficient detection approach is proposed based on the
deviation of the histogram relevant to the time-frequency
plane’s image of the steady-state modal current signal from
the standard normal distribution. First, the misleading
frequency components like 3rd, 5th, and 7th harmonics are
excluded using Kalman Filter (KF). Then, from the time-
frequency spectrogram of the signal, the converted gray-
level image and its histogram are obtained. A considerable
deviation of the histogram distribution from a normal
distribution is observed in the case of ITSC fault, used for
the detection. A cumulative index including normalized
skewness and kurtosis of the histogram is used as the
criterion of the detection. Finally, a novel threshold setting
method based on Otsu’s threshold principle is proposed,
which efficiently distinct faulty conditions from healthy
operations. The required data for assessment of the
approach is gathered from different experiments carried
out on a test bench, subjected to various fault percentages
and different load levels. The results confirm the
effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
Index Terms—Fault Diagnosis, Induction Motor, Inter-
Turn Short Circuit (ITSC), Kalman Filter, Motor Current
Signature Analysis (MCSA), Frequency Domain Analysis.
1. INTRODUCTION
Induction Motors (IMs) are the most widely used electric
motors in industries due to their low cost, high reliability,
and strength [1]. Although, because of their robustness,
IMs are promising electric machines against fault in a
variety of applications, they might experience different
failures. In general, faults in IMs originate either from
mechanical, electrical, thermal, or ambient stresses [2].
These stresses can lead to faults mainly in the stator,
rotor, and bearings of IMs. Based on the reports, stator
faults with more than 30% are the second most common
faults (after bearing faults) [3]. Generally, stator faults are
caused by fragile insulation between turns and coils,
which lead to inter-turn short circuit (ITSC) fault [4,5].
ITSC faults can potentially evolve to more severe faults,
unplanned maintenance, and even unavoidable
shutdown. Hence, condition monitoring of IMs is crucial
for the early detection of ITSC faults and prolonged
*corresponding author
E-mail addresses : ghanbari@shirazu.ac.ir (T. Ghanbari),
a.mehraban@shirazu.ac.ir (A. Mehraban), farjah@shirazu.ac.ir (E. Farjah)
service of these machines.
Various detection approaches for ITSC faults have
been addressed in the literature. These techniques are
mainly classified into IM-model-based [6], sequence-
component-based [7,8], and signature-based [9–15]
categories. From another aspect, the approaches are
categorized as non-intrusive and intrusive-based
techniques. Some of the fault detection methods like
signature-based approaches could be both non-intrusive
and intrusive, considering the employed signal [12]. The
faults can be detected at the incipient moments or the
steady-state conditions after the occurrence. Although
incipient fault signatures may be more significant,
implementation of the incipient fault detection-based
methods has more restrictions in practice.
Different signatures of IMs have been used for ITSC
fault detection. Among them, voltage [9], impedance [10],
flux [11,13], thermal [14], and vibration [15] are more
common. However, the methods based on these
signatures may be invasive, costly, and require additional
sensors [16]. The methods based on Motor Current
Signature Analysis (MCSA), are attractive common
techniques for ITSC Fault detection [17–19]. These
methods could use the already installed current sensors
and so they are suitable for being non-intrusive, cheap,
and simple to implement.
MCSA could be classified into Artificial Intelligence-
based (AI) and Analytical Analysis-based (AA)
approaches. In [4], an AI-based model has been
proposed using Artificial Neural Network (ANN), in which
various ITSC faults severities and torque levels have
been considered. In some innovative works,
combinations of both AI and AA approaches have been
employed [20]. A novel methodology based on a
combination of discrete wavelet transform and ANN has
been proposed [1]. However, the results of AI-based
approaches are not interpretable. Also, the required
extensive data for training and new data for retraining
during the time are the other restrictions [16]. AA-based
approaches have been addressed in the literature as
Time-Domain Analysis (TDA), Frequency-Domain
analysis (FDA), and Time-Frequency-Domain analysis
(TFDA). Different tools have been employed in each area.
A TDA approach has been presented in [21] based on the
correlation function. Autocorrelation of the envelope of the
IM’s modal current has been used as the criterion of fault
detection. Fast Fourier transform is another tool used in
FDA-based approaches for IM fault detection [13]. Most
recently, TFDA approaches have attracted more attention
and have been widely employed in IM fault detection.
Hilbert transform has been employed in [22] to analyze
the IM current under the influence of the ITSC fault. Also,
a discrete wavelet transform is utilized in [23] to attain the
ITSC fault statistical features in the raw current signals of
the IM. In [24], a Winger-Ville distribution has been utilized
for IM monitoring under various faults, like ITSC, mixed
eccentricity, and Broken Rotor Bar (BRB). Short-Time
Fourier Transform (STFT) as an extension of the FFT is a
reliable and easily implemented tool for TFDA-based
approaches.
Some of the proposed methods for various faults like
BRB could be employed for other faults such as ITSC,
straightforwardly. For instance, a Slepian-window in
performing STFT of the motor current has been presented
in [25] for BRB fault detection in IMs. Also, a new BRB
fault detection has been proposed in [1], in which a
spectrogram of the IM zero-sequence start-up current has
been utilized to trace the fault signature trajectories.
Moreover, in [26] using two spectrograms and
segmentation approach based on Otsu’s method, BRB
fault has been discriminated from the other similar
conditions. In this method, the impact of different load
levels has not been considered, and the suggested
criterion experiences a slight change in different levels of
faults.
In this paper, an efficient ITSC fault detection method
in IMs is proposed, based on analyzing the modal current
in the frequency domain. First, using a KF, any event is
detected for applying the analysis. Also, 3rd, 5th, and 7th
harmonic components of the modal current are canceled
by the KF. Then, the spectrogram of the resultant signal
is derived and is converted into a gray-level image. After
that, from its histogram, a cumulative index of kurtosis and
skewness is extracted. This criterion represents the
deviation of the histogram distribution from the standard
normal distribution. In comparison with the simple
frequency-based methods such as FFT, the spectrogram
could give us variation of the harmonic components
during a pre-specified time which is characterized by its
histogram. Various results in different scenarios showed
that the histogram distribution has a considerable
deviation from the standard normal distribution in ITSC
fault conditions. Moreover, a suitable method for setting a
threshold on the criterion values is proposed, based on
the original Otsu’s method.
In short, the main contributions of this paper are as
Fig. 1. Procedure of the proposed ITSC fault approach.
follows:
1- Event detection of the IM using a residual signal,
derived by KF
2- Elimination misleading harmonics using KF.
3- Suggestion of an efficient ITSC fault detection
using a time – frequency-based approach
4- Setting the threshold using a new approach
based on Otsu’s image thresholding method.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows, Section
2 deals with a comprehensive explanation of different
parts of the proposed methodology. Event detection and
harmonic elimination by KF, deriving the spectrogram, the
histogram, and the proposed criterion, as well as the
proposed Otsu-based thresholding method, are
discussed in this section in detail. In Section 3, the results
of different scenarios are presented. A comparison
between the proposed approach and some similar
approaches is presented in Section 4. Finally, the main
outcomes are concluded in Section 5.
2. THE PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
The proposed methodology includes three main steps.
In the first step, by applying KF to the modal current of
three-phase current signals, any event is detected. Also,
3rd, 5th, and 7th harmonics of the modal signal are
eliminated. In the second step, the spectrogram and its
relevant histogram of the resultant signal are derived.
Also, a criterion for the detection is defined based on the
deviation from the standard normal distribution of the
histogram. The procedures of these two steps are
illustrated in Fig. 1. In the third step, a new approach for
setting the threshold need to separate the collected
criterion values of the ITSC fault and other similar
conditions is introduced. In the following, these steps are
discussed in more detail.
2.1 Kalman filter
The purposes of using a real-time KF estimator in this
work are detection of any events, identifying steady-state
conditions after the events, and eliminating 3rd, 5th, and 7th
harmonics of the signal. To do so, the modal signal,
instead of three-phase current signals, is estimated by KF
in real-time. The modal signal is proper linear mixing of
the three-phase current signals as below.
im   ia   ib   ic (1)
 Selecting the coefficients α, β, and γ should ensure the S n  in   n (4)
preservation of all transients in the three phase current
signals. Also, the cancellation of the transient contained The KF estimation of the fundamental component of the
in any two phase currents when they have the same current is achieved by translating (2) into space-state
magnitude should be avoided. In other words, there is no equations. So, (3) and (4) can be reconstructed as:
direct summation or subtraction between any two current
signals in (1). Each current signal is multiplied by a Yn 1  AmYn  Bm  n
different coefficient to amplify the mismatches between (5)
different phase currents. Therefore, α, β, and γ are chosen S n  H mT Yn   n
1, 2, and -3, respectively.
Since there is no direct subtraction or summation where matrices Yn, Am, Bm, and Hm for 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th
between two phases, the frequency content of the three- harmonics are developed as follows:
phase can be found in the modal signal. Also, the
computation burden of the process is reduced. Yn  Yn1 Yn 3 Yn 5 Yn 7 
T

In normal conditions, KF estimates the modal signal

accurately, and the error between the original signal and  Ah1 0 0 0 
 0 Ah 3 0 0 
the estimated one (ierror) is negligible. After the occurrence
Am  
of any event, the error exceeds a predefined threshold, ε,  0 0 Ah 5 0  (6)
by which the event is detected. The value of ε is chosen  
in a way that normal operation disturbances are  0 0 0 Ah 7 
distinguished from fault cases, properly. To do so, various Bm  [ Bh1 Bh 3 Bh 5 Bh 7 ]T
possible experiments including normal and ITSC fault H m  [ H h1 H h3 H h5 H h 7 ]T
scenarios were carried out. By analyzing the error
where,
waveform in various scenarios, it was figured out that
Yn1  Yn 3  Yn 5  Yn 7  in in 1 
T
selecting the value of 0.02 as the threshold ensures the
event detection correctly.  2 cos(0 ) 1  2 cos(30 ) 1
Ah1    , Ah 3   ,
After a while, KF tracks the modal signal precisely again
 1 0  1 0 
and the error is less than ε gain. Now, the 3rd, 5th, and 7th
harmonics of the modal signal are estimated and  2 cos(50 ) 1  2 cos(70 ) 1
Ah 5    , Ah 7   ,
excluded from the original signal. The presence of these  1 0  1 0 
harmonics in various networks with different power quality Bh1  Bh 3  Bh 5  Bh 7  [1 0]T
levels could negatively affect the performance of the
proposed method. The resultant signal is the input of the H h1  H h 3  H h 5  H h 7  [1 0]T
second step of the procedure. Estimation of the 1st, 3rd,
5th, and 7th of the modal signal are described in the Now, the fundamental component of the modal signal
following. can be estimated by the well-known iterative KF
For the KF estimation model, a mathematical model of equations [27]. The residual current signal, which is the
the measured current is employed in form of the state- input of the next step is calculated as follows:
space. Assume that the current is a sinusoidal signal with
optional amplitude and phase as: ires  in  S n (7)

in  I p cos( 0 n   )
in which, Ip is the current amplitude,ω0=2πf0/fs, where f0
and fs are the fundamental and sampling frequencies,
respectively, and n is the sample index. Based on basic
trigonometric principles, in can be recursively calculated
as:
in 1  in  2 cos( 0 n )in   n
where χn is a random term with zero mean, added to
denote the model’s possible error. This term has small
amplitude, phase, or frequency deviations. The input
(2)
2.2 Spectrogram and the Proposed Detection
Criterion Implementation
Now, the spectrogram of the residual current is derived
to have a frequency-time domain representation of the
signal. The spectrogram is an expression of time-
localized frequency contents for a given signal. To
achieve the spectrogram, Short-Time Fourier Transform
(STFT) of the signal u(τ) should be derived. At time t = τ ,
(3)
STFT is obtained by multiplying u(τ) using window
function w(τ) centered at τ = t as:
Fsw (t , f )   u ( ) w(t   ) (8)
f

current may possibly be disturbed by measurement or

other sources of noise. Therefore, this noise is modeled where  and f are the Fourier transform symbol and the
with another zero-mean random term (ψn) as follows: signal frequency, respectively. STFT represents the
phase and magnitude of the signal over time and
frequency. The spectrogram is then defined as the 1 z
squared magnitude of the STFT which is expressed as  ( x j   x )3
z j 1
follows [28]: Skew  3
(11)
1 z 2 
2

S sw (t , f )  Fsw (t , f )
2 z
2
  u ( ) w(t   )
f
2

 
u ( ) w(t   )e 2 j f  d
In Fig. 2-a, b, the spectrograms of the residual signal
for one cycle of 3s typical healthy modal signal and a
modal signal for 7% of ITSC fault are shown. In the
spectrogram analysis, the Hamming window is selected
with the width and overlap of 15ms and 50%, respectively.
Also, the frequency resolution is 2.5Hz. It should be noted
that unsuitable selection of these parameters may affect
the performance of the method.
The spectrogram images are converted to gray-level
images, and their histograms are extracted. The
corresponding histograms of the spectrogram images
shown in Fig 2 are presented in Fig 3. As shown in Fig.3-
a, b, the deviation of the histogram distribution from the
standard normal distribution is different in healthy and
fault conditions. This signature is used for the detection
considering kurtosis and skewness of the distributions.
Kurtosis and Skewness are two features that express
the shape of data distribution and refer to the deviation
from the standard normal distribution. The kurtosis of a
set of data like x = {x1, x2… xz} is stated as:
1 z
 ( x j  x )4
z j 1
Kurt  2 (10)
1 z 
  ( x j  x ) 
2
  ( x j  x ) 
 j 1 
(9) The skewness is a measure of the asymmetry of the
distribution and the higher value shows more deviation
from the center of the normal distribution.
For the healthy case of the typical example, the kurtosis
and skewness are 14.2332 and 3.3431, respectively, and
for the faulty case, they are 27.2744, 4.6745, respectively.
These results indicate that both kurtosis and skewness
indices experience a considerable deviation in faulty and
healthy conditions. In order to have the effect of both
features for evaluation of the histogram, a cumulative
index is considered as the criterion for the detection.
2.3 The Proposed Otsu-Based Thresholding Method
2.3.1 Otsu’s method
Otsu’s method [29] is a statistical segmentation analysis,
aimed to separate the pixels of an image into two classes
with respect to their intensity values. A threshold is
determined between the separated classes in which intra-
class variance of the classes is maximized, using the
histogram of the image [30].
Given that the gray-level digital image has a total number
of N pixels, and L different intensity levels, so that the kth
intensity level has nk pixels in the image. The normalized
histogram includes components p k  n k N in which:
L 1
p
k 0
k  1, pk  0 (12)
Now, suppose that with a predefined threshold at k = tr

 z j 1  intensity level, the image is classified into C1 and C2

where z is the number of samples, and μx is the mean classes. So, the probability P and the mean intensity
value of x. The kurtosis is a measure of tailedness of the value μ assigned to each class are derived as follows:
probability distribution and the higher value implies
heavier tailed distribution and simultaneously higher tr
1  PC1   Pk   (tr ) (13)
peaks. A data with a kurtosis higher than 3 is called k 0
Leptokurtic which has a fat-tailed representation. L 1
The skewness of the data-set x is obtained as follows: 2  PC 2  
k  tr 1
Pk  1   (tr ) (14)

(a) (b) (a) (b)

Fig. 2. Spectrogram of the residual current for a) healthy case Fig. 3. The histogram of the spectrogram’s converted gray-level
of the IM with 50% of full load, and b) ITSC faulty case (7%) of image a) healthy case of the IM with 50% of full load, and b)
the IM with 50% of full load ITSC faulty case (7%) of the IM with 50% of full load
 tr tr criterion values, are considered which their color intensity
C1   kP(k | C1 )   kP(C1 | k )P(k ) / P(C1 ) is matched with their values using a default color-map.
k 0 k 0
(15) Afterward, the resultant image is converted into a gray-
1 tr  (tr )
  kpk   (tr )
PC1 k  0
level image. In the figure, the vertical axis is different color
levels (here 28 = 256 levels), as possible thresholds, and
L 1
1 L 1
the horizontal axis returns the scenarios’ number. Otsu’s
C 2  
k  tr 1
kP (k | C2 ) 
PC 2

k  tr 1
kpk
method is utilized and among the possible thresholds, the
(16) color level which satisfies (22) is chosen as the threshold.
1 L 1
   (tr )

PC 2
 kpk  L
1   (tr )
Now, the determined threshold color level should be
k  tr 1 converted to a value for the criterion. Generally, the
number of pixels (criterion values) is not equal to the color
The term P (k|C1) in (15) is the probability of the kth levels (256) in the image, the optimal threshold derived by
intensity level, as regards, k comes from class C1. P (C1|k) Otsu’s method may not be relevant to one of the existing
is the probability of C1 given k, and it is considered 1 since pixels, necessarily. Hence, interpolation may be required
only the values of k from class C1 is dealt with. In (15) and between the two adjacent color levels of the Otsu’s
(16) the Bayes’ formula (P (A|B) = P (B|A) P (A) / P (B)) is optimal threshold and their corresponding criterion
used. P (k) is the probability of kth intensity level or kth values.
component of the histogram pk. μ(tr), and μμL are the The overall flowchart of the proposed ITSC fault
cumulative mean up to level tr, and the cumulative mean detection algorithm is shown in Fig. 5.
of the entire image, calculated as follows:
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
tr
 (tr )   kpk (17) The assessment of the proposed methodology in
k 0 discriminating ITSC faults from healthy conditions is
L performed under several scenarios in this section. In the
 L   kpk (18) following, the test bench description and testing scenarios
k 0
as well as the methodology procedures are presented.
Also, the results are discussed in detail.
The effectiveness of the selected threshold is evaluated
by a normalized measure of class separability as follows: 3.1 Test bench explanation
 2
The structure of the experimental test bench is depicted
 ic
(19)
 L
2
in Fig. 6. A three-phase squirrel cage IM is used, whose
specifications are tabulated in Table1. The IM’s stator was
where σ2ic and σ2L are the intra-class and total variances
of the pixels in the image, respectively, defined as:

 ic2  1  1   L   2  2   L 
2 2

(20)
 12  1  2 
2

L 1
 L2    k  L  pk
2
(21)
k 0

The second line of (20) suggests that the distance

between the two means μ1 and μ2 shows the value of σ2ic,
which implies that the intra-class variance is a degree of
separability between classes. This is also valid for η, since
σ2L is constant for the image. Therefore, an optimal
threshold tropt should be determined in which σ2ic is
maximized. This threshold separates the classes the best
and is given by:
 ic2 (tropt )  max  ic2 (tr )  (22)
0  tr  L 1

2.3.2 The proposed OBT method

The procedure of the proposed OBT method is shown
in Fig. 4. In this method, a figure of the collected values of
the criterion in different scenarios is formed. Some
colored pixels in the figure, equal to the number of the Fig. 4. The proposed OBT method.
 Fig. 6. Experimental test bench configuration

Table 2. ITSC Fault and Loading Percentage in Various

Scenarios
ITSC fault severity (Percentage of
0% (Healthy), 2%, 4%, 7%
the total turns in one phase)
Loading condition (Percentage of 0% (No load), 12.5%, 25%, 37.5%,
the nominal load) 50%, 62.5%, 75%, 100% (full load)

signal.
Fig. 5. The proposed ITSC fault detection methodology
3.2 The scenarios:
rewound such that different branches of the three phases
are available in an external terminal box for realizing The experimental setup is employed for data acquisition
different ITSC faults scenarios. Each ITSC fault scenario of different scenarios. These scenarios are performed by
is realized by short circuiting the corresponding terminals combining various ITSC faults and loading conditions as
using a Siemens auxiliary switch block with the shortest listed in Table 2. The under-study IM has 6 coils for each
possible connection wire length. Since, short-circuit phase, each coil has 300 turns, resulting total 1800 turns
resistance of the switch and connections was negligible, per phase. Therefore, 2%, 4%, 7% of turns correspond to
the short circuiting could be considered solidly. The IM is 36, 72, and 126 turns, respectively. For each loading level
directly connected to a three-phase supply and its rotor of the IM, different fault percentages are applied and the
shaft is coupled with the shaft of a DC Machine (DCM), three-phase currents are gathered to achieve the modal
operating as a generator. The output terminals of the current. These cases provide 4×8 = 32 different
DCM are connected to a variable resistive load. Three scenarios, which can fully describe the real operating
clamped current sensors are attached to the IM’s supply conditions of the IM.
cables and their outputs are imported to a LAUNCHXL- 3.3 Assessment of the results of all test scenarios:
F28379D board, produced by TEXAS Instrument. The
Table 3 shows the calculated values of kurtosis and
three-phase currents data for various scenarios are
skewness for the experimental outputs derived for all of
gathered through a computer by a sampling frequency of
the 32 test scenarios. Also, the cumulative normalized
10 kHz in 3 s, generating a total of 30,000 samples per
kurtosis and skewness criterion is introduced as follows:
Table 1.Rated Value of the Under Study Test Bench
Kurt Skew
Specifications Value Cks   (23)
max( Kurt ) max( Skew)
IM
Rated power 1.5 hp
Rated voltage 220 V
where max(Kurt) and max(Skew) are the maximum
Nominal frequency 50 Hz values of kurtosis and skewness among all scenarios,
No. of poles 4 respectively. At first glance, these results show an
DCM increasing trend in the values of the kurtosis and
Rated power 0.9 kW
Rated voltage 200
skewness from the healthy case to 7% of ITSC fault, in all
Measuring Units of the loading cases, and the cumulative criterion for
Current sensor TA189 every faulty condition is higher than in healthy ones. As
Microcontroller board LAUNCHXL-F28379D shown in Fig. 7, the values of the cumulative criteria for
Short-circuit switch Siemens, 3RH1921-1HA22
Sampling frequency 10 kHz
the healthy cases in every loading percentage, are slightly
lower than those for ITSC fault cases. For a given load
condition, the criterion shows an increasing trend when
fault severity increases. Also, for a given fault level, the
criterion looks sensitive to load conditions with a non-
monotonic variation. Therefore, effective separation of the
healthy and faulty cases necessitates a quantitative
thresholding technique, carried out by the proposed OBT
method.
Table 3. Kurtosis, Skewness and Normalized Cumulative
Criterion for All of the Test Scenarios
Load
(% of ITSCF Cumulative
Kurtosis Skewness
full Severity Criterion
load)
Healthy 14.6021 3.3907 1.2233
No 2% 16.5400 3.6422 1.3441
load 4% 24.3465 4.4045 1.7781
7% 28.4519 4.7747 2
Healthy 14.4306 3.3713 1.2132
2% 16.1847 3.5946 1.3216
12.5%
4% 21.8583 4.1854 1.6448
7% 27.8526 4.7182 1.9671
Healthy 14.5695 3.3906 1.2221
2% 20.5734 4.0080 1.5625
25%
4% 22.5513 4.2560 1.6839 (a)
7% 27.2811 4.6696 1.9368
Healthy 14.4012 3.3618 1.2102
2% 15.8233 3.5515 1.2999
37.5%
4% 22.1543 4.2179 1.6620
7% 26.7034 4.6256 1.9073
Healthy 14.2332 3.3431 1.2004
2% 15.7258 3.5427 1.2946
50%
4% 22.3859 4.2356 1.6738
7% 27.2744 4.6745 1.9376
Healthy 14.5264 3.3856 1.2196
2% 16.3824 3.6211 1.3341
62.5%
4% 23.5988 4.3423 1.7388
7% 26.6655 4.6208 1.9049
Healthy 14.2720 3.3597 1.2052
2% 17.6032 3.7622 1.4066
75% (b)
4% 22.2557 4.2286 1.6678
7% 27.0942 4.6699 1.9303
Healthy 14.5841 3.3937 1.2233
Full 2% 17.3491 3.7344 1.3918
load 4% 23.2045 4.3161 1.7195
7% 27.4196 4.6999 1.9480

3.4 The threshold setting:

Once the criterion values of all scenarios were derived,
they are plotted on a figure and a pixel is assigned to each
value, as shown in Fig. 8-a. These values are marked with
colored circles based on a default colormap as depicted
in Fig. 8-b. In order to accurate determination of the (c)
threshold, one color pixel is considered for each value of
the criterion. However, for better visualization of the
pixels, they are depicted by some bigger solid circles.
Now, this figure is converted to a gray-level image with
256 color levels as shown in Fig. 8-c. As observed, the
colored circles of Fig. 8-b are normalized to 0-255 indices
in Fig 8-c. The highest and lowest indices are assigned to
the white (index 255) and black (index 0) colors,
respectively. However, since there are only 32 pixels in
the image, only some of the indices between 0-255 exist
(d)
Fig. 8. The performance of the proposed OBT method the peak
values of cumulative criterion for all the 32 test scenarios, a)
marked at the locations specified by their values, b) colored by
a default color-map, c) converted into gray-level image, and d)
the binary image classified into foreground (black) and
background (white) pixels.
in the figure. Using Otsu’s method for this figure, the
Fig. 7. Cumulative criterion for all of the scenarios threshold is calculated 0.7961. This threshold value is
normalized from the 256-gray-level image to the range of
[0, 1]. So, it matches a color level as 0.7961×256 =
203.80. This indicates that all pixels with color levels
below 203.80 are classified as the foreground and the
pixels with color levels with 203.80 to 256 color levels are
classified as the background class. It can be seen in Fig.
8-c that, the index 203.80 is located between the 18th and
1st pixels with indices 201 and 218, respectively.
Therefore, to obtain the exact threshold value of the
cumulative criterion, interpolation is required between the
index values and the corresponding criterion values. By
interpolating the criterion values of these pixels, the final
threshold value is calculated as 1.2829, marked with the
dashed line in red in Fig. 8-c. Therefore, the final
threshold value, Cks*, is 1.2829, which is shown in Fig. 8-
c with a dashed line in red. Figure 8-d shows the binary
image considering this threshold. In this figure, the
foreground class is shown as black pixels and the
background class is shown as white pixels.
4. COMPARISON WITH PERVIOUS METHODS
In this section, the proposed methodology is compared to
some classic approaches for ITSC fault detection in IMs.
This comparison is made based on some criteria,
described in the following.
4.1 Complexity:
Complexity of any method is defined considering the main
components required for realization of the method and the
governed philosophy on the algorithm. Generally,
interpretability of the results of the complex methods such
as AI-based methods is under question. Also, some
methods like model-based approaches need some prior
knowledge regarding specifications of the motors and the
used components, which make them complicated in
practice. Although in the complex approaches more detail
of the motor behaviors is taken into consideration,
robustness of them is the main concern in different
operating conditions. The complexity of the proposed
methodology is relatively, since it does not require any
prior detailed knowledge of the motor structure. Also, its
algorithm is simple and the results are interpretable.
4.2 Cost-effectiveness
Considering the utilized components and their
specifications in different approaches, their cost-
effectiveness can be categorized. Employing the already
mounted components like current and voltage sensors
with common specifications reduces the implementation
cost, while the need of some specific sensors may affect
the cost-effectiveness considerably. Also, the need of
some special high-performance processors may impact
justification of the methods in real implementation. In
some methods, several components like sensors are
needed to be embedded in the motor structure, which not
only increases the cost but also may lead to some
essential obstacles for implementing in the already
fabricated IMs. In general, non-invasive methods are
more desirable than the invasive ones thanks to avoiding
the possible side effects of invasive methods in practice
and being cost-effective. The proposed methodology is
cost-effective due to using the existing current sensors
and not requiring special type of high performance
processors.
4.3 Computational burden
Computational burden is defined by both the required
sampling rate of the analyzed signals and processing rate
of the algorithm. In general, the methods which require a
higher resolution of the signal for achieving a higher
detection accuracy have much computational burden.
Also, this criterion is sometimes in a tradeoff with the cost-
effectiveness of the approaches. That is because the
methods with higher computational efforts require high-
performance processors and high-band width sensors.
This criterion is a key factor for the feasibility of method in
real implementation.
The computational burden of the proposed method is
related different steps of the procedure, as follows:
 Measurement and modal current calculation:
considering the chosen high-band width current sensor
and the clock frequency of the employed processor, the
elapsed time of this step is around 100μs, which is
negligible.
 Fault detection step: upon the fault detection by the
sample-wised KF, around 10 cycles should be passed to
fall the KF tracking error under the considered threshold
(ε=0.2). Therefore, the elapsed time for this step is
calculated as 10× (1/50Hz) = 0.2s.
 Signal analysis step: the elapsed time of this step is
mainly related to the spectrogram calculation, which is
averagely 50ms. The calculation of the cumulative
criterion value is insignificant in comparison to the
spectrogram calculation time.
All in all, the total calculation time of the proposed
methodology is about 0.28s, which is among the medium
computational burden class approaches. Note that the
case studies are conducted by using MALAB R2021b on
a PC with Intel Core i7-7800 processor (3.50 GHz) and
32.00 GB RAM.
4.4 Generality
Generality is related to the possibility of extending the
methods to handle the other types of faults, motor
structures, and operating conditions. Although the
methods with high-generality are desirable from covering
all of the conditions aspect, their accuracy, cost, and
complexity are generally under question compared to the
methods focused on one type of the faults. In some
methods, some degrees of the generality is archived by
some minor modifications in the procedure (for instance
by changing the threshold value). The proposed
methodology focuses on ITSC faults and is capable of
detecting winding fault in various loading condition. This
method has a desirable generality level since it is not
dependent on the motor structure and can be applied to 5. CONCLUSION
the other operating conditions by some minor In this paper, an ITSC detection method was proposed for
modifications. IMs, based on frequency domain analysis of the modal
4.5 Accuracy current. Event detection, as well as 3rd, 5th, and 7th
Accuracy of the detection for each approach is defined as harmonics elimination were carried out using KF. For the
the correct fault detection cases through the considered residual current, the spectrogram was obtained, and by
case studies. The same conditions should be considered converting its image to a gray-level image, the relevant
to fairly compare the accuracy of the methods. However, histogram was derived. It was shown that the cumulative
accuracy of the approaches is dependent on their criterion of kurtosis and skewness could discriminate
complexity and generality in general. ITSC faults from other similar conditions. The
Table 4. presents a comparison between the proposed methodology was assessed under different scenarios,
methodology and some other classic approaches. including some loading percentages and ITSC fault
Based on the above discussion, the proposed approach severities, experimented using the test bench. Finally, an
can detect ITSC faults at the early stage of occurrence efficient threshold setting for the criterion was proposed
and prevents catastrophic failures. This approach has based on Otsu’s method. It was confirmed that the
some superiorities to the classical approaches such as proposed method can effectively discriminate healthy
being simple, cost-effective, and non-invasive. This paper cases from ITSC fault cases, regardless of the load
utilizes the KF as a noise compatible tool for fast fault change and ITSC fault severity level.
detection. Also, the STFT approach is applied to one
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 Highlights

Title: Inter-turn Fault Detection

of Induction Motors Using a
Method Based on Spectrogram
of Motor Currents

 ITSC fault in IMs is investigated

based on analyzing the time-
frequency plane’s image of the
steady-state modal current
signal.
 The criterion of the detection is
considered as cumulative
skewness and kurtosis of the
image’s histogram.
 A real-time KF estimator is
employed for detecting any
events and eliminating
misleading harmonics from the
IM current.
 A new thresholding method is
proposed based on Otsu’s image
thresholding method.
To: Measurement

Dear Sir,
Credit Authors statement is as follows:

Teymoor Ghanbari: Conceptualization, Methodology,

Experimentation, Validation, Formal analysis, review & editing
Abbas Mehraban: Investigation, Methodology, Software,
Writing - original draft, Visualization, Validation
Ebrahim Farjah: Project administration,Supervision, review &
editing, Validation Data gathering

Sincerely,
T. Ghanbari
Declaration of interests

☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing

financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

☐The authors declare the following financial

interests/personal relationships which may be
considered as potential competing interests: