Advanced condition monitoring of electric machinery

The automotive, aerospace, offshore wind and manufacturing sectors are looking for much improved performance envelope electrical machines and drives to underpin ambitions plans for market electrification. In addition to improved design, a large part of the required solution will be enabled by the application of improved sensing, monitoring and control management techniques - in variable speed machine/drive systems these could facilitate a much improved understanding of the vicinity of operating points to design limits, and development of advanced routines for appropriate operating point management to deliver increased performance. To achieve these greatly improved monitoring of key operational parameters is required.

This project will look at improving the current state of condition monitoring techniques for electric machines with a focus on diagnosis in transient operating conditions, through exploring new modes of diagnostic data analysis. The project will develop an advanced model of a permanent magnet motor drive capable of fault emulation and utilize it for research on development and extraction of diagnostic techniques for transient operating condition. A test system will also be devised to be used for experimental research and model validation.

The research aligns primarily with the EPSRC electrical motors and drives/electromagnetics portfolio.