A Low-Cost Measurement and Data Collection System for Electric Motor Condition

Monitoring
A-L. Rautiainen, R. Tiainen, J. Ahola, T. Lindh
Lappeenranta University of Technology
P.O. Box 20 53851
Lappeenranta, Finland
ABSTRACT In this paper, a low-cost measurement and
data collection system for on-line condition monitoring of
electrical machines is presented. The system is located on
the motor level of an industrial plant and contains no em-
bedded analysis. A pilot installation of the system is de-
scribed. Additionally, the usability of an analogue-output
temperature sensor in the presence of a frequency con-
verter is discussed.
I. INTRODUCTION
The goal of the predictive condition monitoring of electrical
motors in industrial plants is to indicate deterioration in the
condition of the motor before the actual failure occurs. In
many cases, the defect does not cause an immediate interrup-
tion of the process. If this is the case, the defective part can
be replaced or repaired during normal, scheduled mainte-
nance breaks, provided that the defect has been found in its
sufficiently early stage. The most common causes to a failure
of an electric motor are faults in bearings, the stator and the
rotor. About three quarters of all failures are caused by bear-
ing or stator faults, both being approximately equally fre-
quent. [1]
There exist many methods for the predictive condition
monitoring of electrical machines. The analysis can be based
on different measured quantities. These include, for exa mple,
temperature, current, magnetic flux density and vibration.
Furthermore, the measurement can be periodical (manual) or
continuous (on-line). In this paper, on-line condition monitor-
ing is discussed. Predictive condition monitoring has been
widely researched in our laboratory. Lindh [2] provides a
comprehensive overview of defect detection methods and
different condition monitoring schemas. Special emphasis in
his work is on the detection and classification of bearing de-
fects.
This article is concerned with designing a measurement
and data collection system for condition monitoring in which
the data analyses and decision-making are not carried out on
the field level but on a higher level. The principle of the con-
dition monitoring concept and an example of the kind of sys-
tem that is developed in this research is presented in Fig. 1.
The designed system is located on the field level and consists
of several condition-monitoring sensors attached to data-
collecting units. Here, only one collector unit and three sen-
sor units are shown. There can be, however, a multitude of
collector units each with multiple sensor units, connected to
higher-level information systems in an industrial plant. Alter-
natively, remote diagnostics can be used, in which case there
need be no local diagnostics in the plant at all. The data
transmission in this schema can be achieved over the Internet
or mobile telephone network, to name a few examples.
Since no analyses are done on the field level, the system
can be relatively simple; sensor units and collector units can
be based on simple microcontrollers. A DSP-based system, in
which the data analysis is done on the field level, has been
researched and developed in our laboratory by patenka [3].
The main advantage of higher-level analysis over field level
analysis is the simplicity of hardware; great processing capac-
ity is not needed. On the other hand, higher data transmis sion
capacity is required, since all the measured data need to be
transferred, instead of transferring the mere results of analy-
sis.
The sensors developed in this study measure temperature
and vibration. All transmission between the sensors and the
collector unit is digital in order to avoid problems caused by
interference from surrounding equipment in the industrial
environment. The data transmission capacity required be-
tween the sensors and the collector varies between different
Field
Level
Management
Level
Process
Control Level
SENSOR
UNIT
SENSOR
UNIT
COLLECTOR
UNIT
SENSOR
UNIT
Information system of industrial plant Remote Diagnostics
Database
Server
Database
Server
Condition analyses
and supervision of results
Global
Management
Level
Internet,
UMTS,
GSM etc.
PROCESS
Internet,
UMTS,
GSM etc.

Fig. 1 The developed system as a part of the model of the industrial infor-
mation infrastructure. In the model, motors, actuators etc. are located on the
field level. The process control level consists of PLCs and process computers
usually interconnected by field buses. The management level includes PC
workstations connected to local area network(s). The global management
level is located outside the industrial plant and is connected to it by, for ex-
ample, the Internet.
measurements. Since the collector unit needs to be versatile,
it has to be designed to fulfil the needs of the most demand-
ing measurement, which in practice is vibration.
The developed system needs to be inexpensive in order
to extend condition monitoring to targets where it currently is
not economically feasible. Sensors with an analogue output
are often cheaper than those with a digital output, so they
should be used if possible. The usability of an analogue-
output temperature sensor in the presence of magnetic distur-
bance created by a frequency converter is discussed in this
paper, in chapter IV.
II. COMPARISON OF POSSIBLE SYSTEM TOPOLOGIES
The data collection system for a motor consists of sev-
eral sensor units attached to data-collecting units. There can
be one or more collector units all having one or more sensor
units connected. In order to keep the sensors inexpensive,
they are based on a simple microcontroller with no external
memory. Therefore, the collector units provide a temporary
storage for the measurement data. If a particular measurement
generates data more than the internal RAM of the microcon-
troller can store, the data transmission between the sensor
unit and the collector unit has to be real-time. However, the
data transmission from the collector unit onward can be
slower and can be packet-based.
As discussed, it must be possible to connect several sen-
sor units to one collector unit. Two options to accomplish this
were considered: a multi-channel collector unit and a bus
based solution. The principles of the multi-channel realis ation
and the bus-based solution are presented in Fig. 2.
The advantages of a multi-channel realisation include
simple communications protocol, because each transmission
line has only one communicating pair, the collector unit and
the sensor unit. Furthermore, the interface between the sensor
unit and the transmission cable can be made fixed (i.e. con-
nector-less) thus making the connection both more reliable
and less expensive. In the case of the bus-based realis ation,
the connections can be made fixed, too, but this makes it very
difficult to modify an existing system. Moreover, in the case
of the multi-channel collector unit, the whole system is more
reliable, since a defect in one spot of the cable cancels the
connection between the collector unit and one sensor unit
only, instead of, in the worst case, making all of the sensors
unavailable to the collector unit. The main disadvantages are
the fixed number of channels and the increase in the amount
of electronics and connectors required on the collector unit
board; each sensor unit requires a dedicated re-
ceiver/transmitter in the collector unit.
Bus-based approach provides the possibility to form a
chain of sensor units of desired length. Furthermore, the
amount of required electronics on the collector unit board is
smaller than in the case of a multi-channel realisation, be-
cause only one receiver/transmitter is needed. One of the dis-
advantages of this approach is worse reliability; a thread
loose in one spot can cancel the connection between the col-
lector unit and all the sensor units. An error can also be pro-
duced due to multiple devices attached to the bus trying to
transmit simultaneously. This can, however, be effectively
prevented with thorough design of communications protocol.
The most significant disadvantage of field bus based realis a-
tion is the need of connectors. Each sensor unit must have
two connectors: one for the bus entry and the other for the
bus exit (or termination). The sensor units must be as small as
possible, so the connectors cannot be very large either. In
addition, they need to be mechanically strong (they have to
withstand acceleration levels possibly up to 10 times gravit a-
tional acceleration) and preferably inexpensive.
Field bus based approach was chosen for the pilot sys-
tem, mainly because it provides a very flexible system. In
multi-channel realisation, adding more sensor units to an ex-
isting system also requires more collector units, unless the
collector unit currently in use has channels free. On the other
hand, unused channels mean useless electronics, which
makes the field bus based realisation a better option in this
respect. The topology of the system is presented in Fig. 3

Field level
communications
Collector
unit
Sensor
unit
Sensor
unit
Sensor
unit
Sensor
unit
Field level
communications
(Sensor bus)
Collector
unit
Sensor
unit
Sensor
unit
a) b)

Fig. 2 The principle of the multi-channel (a) and bus-based (b) realisation.
SLAVE
SLAVE
SLAVE
MASTER
SLAVE
MASTER
MASTER
(PC, PLC etc.)
Collector unit
Sensor unit
SLAVE
SLAVE
Higher level Communication bus
(Profibus, TCP-IP etc.)
Field bus
Sensor bus

Fig. 3 The topology of the system.
III. THE DEVELOPED SENSOR UNITS AND THE COLLECTOR
UNIT
A sensor unit with the capability of measuring acceleration
and temperature was developed. The unit was based on Ana-
log Devices' ADXL105 micromachined accelerometer, which
also has temperature measurement. The ADXL105 has earlier
been found suitable for bearing condition monitoring when
vibration levels are not particularly high, within the region of
5g. [4] Both of the outputs (acceleration and temperature) of
the ADXL105 are analogue voltages. The acceleration signal
is sampled at a frequency of 20 kHz and digitised using 12
bits, whereas the temperature is measured once, by demand,
and digitised using 10 bits.
The sensor featured the Microchip PIC16F876 microcon-
troller with no external memory. The length of one vibration
measurement was set to 32768 samples, and each sample was
padded to 16 bits. It can be calculated that the space needed
to store one acceleration measurement is 64 kilobytes, which
is far more than the capacity of the internal SRAM of the
microcontroller. Therefore, the measured data need to be
transferred to the collector unit real-time. The minimum
transfer rate acceptable can be calculated when the sampling
frequency and the length of a sample is known. With a sam-
pling frequency of 20 kHz and 16 bits per samp le, this is
320,000 bps.
The sensor units and the collector unit were intercon-
nected by a RS-485 bus (marked Sensor bus in Fig. 3). The
speed of the bus was set to 625,000 bps, which is approxi-
mately double the minimum required.
The collector unit featured the Microchip PIC18F8720
microcontroller with 64 kilowords of 16-bit wide external
SRAM memory. This memory is used to store the measure-
ment data fetched from the sensor units. Its capacity is suffi-
cient to hold two of the previously described vibration meas-
urements at a time.
The collector unit acts as a master on the sensor bus.
Only by its request can a sensor unit start sending data. The
collector unit initiates the data transfer by sending an atten-
tion sequence followed by the number of the sensor the re-
quest is addressed to and the number of the measurement
wanted. After sending the request, the collector unit starts to
listen for incoming data from the sensor bus and storing it to
the memory. When there is a pause long enough in the in-
coming data or the transmission has exceeded a specified
time limit, the collector unit deems the transmission is fin-
ished. The number of the sensor and the measurement as well
as the start address of the storing of the measurement can be
set by the user of the collector unit. Also, the amount of data
the measurement should generate can be set, which makes it
possible for the collector unit to judge whether the measure-
ment was successful or not. On the whole, the collector unit
is versatile in the sense that it can be used to retrieve data
from many different types of sensors or other devices.
There are several possibilities as to realising communica-
tions from the collector unit to a higher level in the informa-
tion infrastructure. Installing new cables is not usually eco-
nomically feasible. Instead, wireless communications or ex-
isting infrastructure, such as field buses or power cabling, can
be used. In the developed system, the physical link was im-
plemented with a similar RS-485 connection as in the case of
the sensor bus. On top of the physical layer, the Modbus pro-
tocol was used. This corresponds to using an existing field
bus in an industrial plant. In an ideal case, the collector unit is
modular so that the protocol can easily be changed to suit the
particular installation environment.
A photograph of a collector unit with two vibration- and
temperature-measuring sensor units attached to it is in Fig. 4.
The lid of the case of the collector unit and the protective
tube around each of the sensor units have been removed. The
sensors and the collector unit are chained together as depicted
in Fig. 2, b. The collector unit is also connected to a PC.

IV. AN EVALUATION OF THE USABILITY OF ANALOGUE SEN-
SORS IN THE PRESENCE OF A FREQUENCY CONVERTER
Frequency converters cause strong magnetic fields around
themselves that can disturb and deface measurement signals
of sensors. The functionality of an analogue semiconductor
centigrade temperature sensor LM50 was tested in the labora-
tory. The sensor measured the temperature at a spot in the
stator winding of a motor that was driven by a frequency
converter. The LM50 is small-sized and inexpensive; in small
quantities it costs about $1. The specified measurement range
is from 40C to +125C and its accuracy is 2C at +25C.
The following devices were used in the test:
?? Temperature sensor LM50
?? Frequency converter ACS200
?? Three-phase motor M2AA 112 M, 4 kW, 2860 rpm
?? Power supply TL-230
D

?? PC
The LM50 was connected to the microcontroller board
using a shielded twisted pair cable. The cable had two twisted

Fig. 4 A collector unit and two sensor units with covers removed.
pairs, one of which was used for power supply for the sensor
and the other for the transmission of the measurement signal.
The cable was approximately 1 m long. The shield was left
unconnected.
The switching frequency of the frequency converter was
16 kHz and the sampling frequency used with the tempera-
ture sensor was approximately 14 kHz. The sampling fre-
quency has to be selected so that it is not harmonically pro-
portional to the switching frequency.
The functionality of the sensor was tested with the fre-
quency converter off and with the output frequencies 0 Hz, 2
Hz, 25 Hz and 50 Hz. The mere switching on of the fre-
quency converter causes interference peaks to the measure-
ment signal, as can be seen in Fig. 5. When the supply fre-
quency increases, disturbances increase noticeably and meas-
ured values bounce within a large range.
However, the original measurement signal can be quite
well seen from the diagrams. When the frequency converter
is on, the voltage peaks are so high that for example using an
average filter would distort the result prominently. Because
the peaks in the signal are of short duration, median filtering
could provide means to bring out the DC level that indicates
the temperature. A median filter is a nonlinear filter that ar-
ranges samples to order of magnitude and the one in the mid-
dle.
A program that median filters the measurement signal of
the LM50 temperature sensor was written for the Microchip
PIC16F876 microcontroller in the C programming language.
Analogue-to-digital conversion of the output values of the
temperature sensors is done by the on-chip 10-bit analogue-
to-digital converter of the PIC. The microcontroller stores 19
values to a buffer, sorts them, gets the median and saves it.
This is done 19 times and after that the microcontroller calcu-
lates the median of these 19 medians. The microcontroller
sends that to the collector unit. In order to test the functional-
ity of the program, the PIC also sends all 19*19=361 tem-
perature values and their 19 medians.
The same motor and frequency converter as earlier were
used when the median filtering program was tested. Two
temperature sensors were connected to the microcontroller
board with wires. One sensor was connected directly to the
PIC so only the median filtering was made to the measure-
ment signal. The measurement signal of the other sensor was
low pass filtered before the microcontroller with a tantalum
electrolytic capacitor of 1 F between the signal and the
ground, so the functionality of low pass filtering could be
tested, too. The PIC sent the values to the collector unit,
whence they were transferred to the computer for analyses.
The samples were taken from both of the sensors with
the frequency converter turned off and with the output fre-
quencies 0 Hz, 2 Hz, 25 Hz and 50 Hz. There are unfiltered
temperature values in the upper diagram and median filtered
values in the lower diagram of Fig. 6. In Fig. 7 there are low
pass filtered temperature values in the upper diagram and
median filtered values in the lower diagram. The median
value was 35.9 C in both cases.
Both the setups worked well in the test. However, if the
peaks have sufficiently high energy, they will cause a shift in
the voltage level at the output of the analogue low pass filter.
Thus, median filtering alone is the preferable alternative in
many cases.
V. A PILOT INSTALLATION
A condition monitoring system consisting of one collector
unit and two acceleration- and temperature-measuring sensor
units was built at UPM-Kymmene Kuusanniemi pulp mill in
Kuusankoski, Finland.
One of the sensor units was attached to a mass pump and
the other to the motor driving it. The motor was a Siemens
1500-RPM, 630-kilowatt machine. The goal was to monitor
the condition of the bearings of the pump and the motor by
0 0.05 0.1
0.65
0.7
0.75
Frequency converter off
t[s]
U
[
V
]
0 0.05 0.1
0.65
0.7
0.75
Frequency converter on, 0 Hz
t[s]
U
[
V
]
0 0.005 0.01
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
Frequency converter on, 25 Hz
t[s]
U
[
V
]
0 0.005 0.01
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
Frequency converter on, 50 Hz
t[s]
U

[
V
]

Fig. 5 The output of the temperature sensor LM50 when the frequency
converter was off and with different frequency converter output frequencies.
50 100 150 200 250 300 350
-20
0
20
40
60
80
T
[

C
]
Unfiltered values
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
35
35.5
36
36.5
37
T
[

C
]
Medians

Fig. 6 The measured temperature values (upper graph) and their 19
medians (lower graph). Each median was calculated from 19 measured
values, which were taken at a frequency of ca. 14 kHz.
measuring vibration and analysing it by calculating its
envelope spectrum, as described in [2]. The maintenance crew
at the plant continued to perform periodical, manual meas-
urements in order to be able to compare their results with
those given by the pilot system.
The collector unit was connected to a PC located at a
control room near the pump. A program was running on the
PC that instructed the collector unit to initiate and receive
specified measurements at given intervals. The program
saved each of the received measurements in a separate file
with the time and date as well as the number of the sensor
unit and the measurement in its name. The PC and the collec-
tor unit were interconnected by Modbus atop a twisted pair
RS-485 connection with a speed of 9600 baud.
The PC system was not directly connected to the infor-
mation systems of the plant. Instead, it could be accessed via
a GSM modem connection and the files could be retrieved
using the FTP protocol. The measured data could then be
accessed by staff at the pulp mill via the Internet from a
server located at the University. The structure of the pilot
system is presented in Fig. 10.
At the time of this writing, the system has been in use for
only a week and no manual measurements have yet been car-
ried out. The system, however, has functioned as intended
and measurement data has been acquired. The vibration
measurements do not indicate any deterioration in the condi-
tion of the bearings. The temperature of the pump and motor
fluctuates around 55 degrees Celsius, as can be seen from
Fig. 9. The temperatures of the corresponding bearings are
somewhat higher. Fig. 8 shows a photograph of a part of the
pilot installation. The collector unit and the sensor attached to
the motor are shown.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
A low-cost measurement and data collection system for use
in the on-line condition monitoring of electrical machines
was designed and built. A pilot system was installed at a pulp
mill. The system was found functional. The usability of ana-
logue-output sensors in the presence of a frequency converter
was evaluated. Median filtering and analogue low-pass filter-
ing was considered in the removal of the disturbances created
by the frequency converter. Median filtering alone was found
to be sufficient in filtering out the disturbances.
50 100 150 200 250 300 350
35
35.5
36
36.5
37
T
[

C
]
Low pass filtered values
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
35
35.5
36
36.5
37
T
[

C
]
Medians

Fig. 7 The low pass filtered measured temperature values (upper graph)
and their 19 medians (lower graph). Each median was calculated from 19
measured values, which were taken at a frequency of ca. 14 kHz.
Fig. 8 The collector unit and one of the two sensors of the pilot installa-
tion in UPM-Kymmene Kuusanniemi pulp plant.
44,0
46,0
48,0
50,0
52,0
54,0
56,0
58,0
60,0
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Hour of the day
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(
d
e
g
r
.

C
)
Pump
Motor

Fig. 9 The temperature measured during one day by the sensor attached to
the motor and the sensor attached to the pump. The sensors measure the
temperature of the frame; the temperature of the bearings is higher. The
changes in the temperatures follow the changes in the ambient temperature.
REFERENCES
[1] T. Lindh, J. Partanen, "Shkkyttjen mittaavan kunnonvalvonnan
menetelmi", TESLA Research Report 14/1999, Lappeenranta Uni-
versity of Technology, 1999 (In Finnish)

[2] T. Lindh, "On the Condition Monitoring of Induction Machines",
Dissertation, Lappeenranta University of Technology, 2003

[3] P. patenka, T. Lindh, J. Ahola, J. Partanen, "Embedded DSP Based
System for Bearing Condition Monitoring of Electric Motors", Re-
search Report 17, Lappeenranta University of Technology, 2003

[4] T. Lindh, J. Ahola, J. Partanen, "Oikosulkumoottorin laakerivian
tunnistaminen mikrotystetyn kiihtyvyysanturin avulla", TESLA Re-
search Report 56/2001, Lappeenranta University of Technology,
2001 (In Finnish)

[5] J. Ahola, "Applicability of Power-Line Communications to Data
Transfer of On-Line Condition Monitoring of Electrical Drives",
dissertation, Lappeenranta University of Technology, 2003




FTP/
WWW-
server
Lappeenranta Univ. of Technology
Remote diagnostics
Control room
FTP-
server
Collector
unit
M
A,T
Mass pump
RS-485
Modbus
RS-485
Bleaching Line 4
UPM-Kymmene Kuusanniemi Pulp Mill
GSM
Internet
A,T Sensors
P

Fig. 10 The pilot system at UPM-Kymmene pulp mill in Kuusankoski.