Diagnosis of Induction Motor Faults in Time-Varying Conditions Using the Polynomial-Phase Transform of the Current

Transient motor current signature analysis is a recently developed technique for motor diagnostics using speed transients. The whole speed range is used to create a unique stamp of each fault harmonic in the time-frequency plane. This greatly increases diagnostic reliability when compared with non-transient analysis, which is based on the detection of fault harmonics at a single speed. But this added functionality comes at a price: well-established signal analysis tools used in the permanent regime, mainly the Fourier transform, cannot be applied to the nonstationary currents of a speed transient. In this paper, a new method is proposed to fill this gap. By applying a polynomial-phase transform to the transient current, a new, stationary signal is generated. This signal contains information regarding the fault components along the different regimes covered by the transient, and can be analyzed using the Fourier transform. The polynomial-phase transform is used in radar, sonar, communications, and power systems fields, but this is the first time, to the best knowledge of the authors, that it has been applied to the diagnosis of induction motor faults. Experimental results obtained with two different commercial motors with broken bars are presented to validate the proposed method.