Physically-based modeling of speed sensors for fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control in wind turbines

In this paper, a generic physically-based modeling framework for encoder type speed sensors is derived. The consideration takes into account the nominal fault-free and two most relevant fault cases. The advantage of this approach is a reconstruction of the output waveforms in dependence of the internal physical parameter changes which enables a more accurate diagnosis and identification of faulty incremental encoders i.a. in wind turbines. The objectives are to describe the effect of the tilt and eccentric of the encoder disk on the digital output signals and the influence of the accuracy of the speed measurement in wind turbines. Simulation results show the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach.