Engine power measurement without external load based on vibration signal

The vibration signals from engines contain information about the engine conditions. Engine power is an important parameter that indicates the state of an engine. In this manuscript, a method for measuring the engine power, using the vibration signals from the engine, is developed. In our proposed method, the power of the engine is measured based on the principle of no-load measurement. The discrete values of rotation speed are computed from the vibration signal, using wavelet transforms, the Hilbert envelope, and three autocorrelations. By comparing various curve-fitting and interpolation methods, an optimal method for curve fitting the discrete acceleration data is chosen, and the corresponding times of the starting speed and terminal speed are calculated using the analytical formulas of the fitted curve. Finally, the maximum engine power is obtained from the calibration tests. Experimental results show that the overall performance is good and that the maximum power measurement accuracy is 98.4 % after accurate calibration. This meets the requirements of the power measurement accuracy under the condition of no load.