Imbalance Detection of Rotor Rotational Speed Using Doppler Radar

Abstract

In operating a wind turbine, both predictive and condition-based maintenances are required to minimize the downtime caused by maintenance. The imbalance of rotor rotational speed is an important factor for diagnosing wind turbine failures. The rotational speed imbalance can be caused by accumulated damage or the accumulation of ice, dust, and moisture. In this paper, we proposed a method for detecting the rotational speed imbalance of a wind turbine using a Doppler radar. We calculated the difference in the rotational speed for different times using spectrograms obtained by observing the wind turbine with a Doppler radar and determined the rotational speed imbalance using the fast Fourier transform. The performance of the proposed algorithm was verified using both synthetic and numerical data.

Keywords

• doppler radar
• dynamic radar cross-section
• imbalance detection
• spectrogram
• wind turbine