Abstract

Bearing faults is one of the primary causes of motor failure. Due to the frequency of occurrence and high risk associated with intrinsic components, identification and characterization of bearing faults via nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods have been studied extensively and vibration analysis has been found to be a promising technique for early detection. However, majority of the existing techniques rely on vibration sensors attached onto or in close proximity to the motor in order to collect signals with a relatively high SNR. Due to weight and space restrictions, these techniques cannot be used in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), especially during flight since accelerometers cannot be attached to motors in small UAVs. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) attached to the body frame of a UAV measure vibrations experienced by the entire UAV due to multiple factors such as weather conditions, control system characteristics, or propeller imbalances. Hence bearing fault signatures get buried under noisy signals. This paper presents a detailed discussion of typical challenges faced with in-flight detection of bearing failure in UAVs using existing sensors and offers potential solutions to bridge the gap of research in the current state-of-art.

How to Cite:

Banerjee, P., Okolo, W. & Moore, A., (2019) “In-flight detection of bearing faults in unmanned aerial vehicles”, Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation .