Identification of Q value and angular frequency of smart gear antenna using the resonant return loss of the receiving antenna

Abstract

Abstract A wireless smart gear system has been being developed as a gear health monitoring system. This system works based on the magnetic coupling between its two major elements consisting of a monitoring antenna and a smart gear. In operation, the smart gear works as a working gear in the power transmission system while the monitoring antenna monitors this gear continuously. Specifically, since the monitoring antenna is fixed and kept connecting to a network analyzer during the gear operation, it allows the magnetic coupling to occur and remain thoroughly. As a result, the return loss signal of the monitoring antenna becomes a resonant return loss data of the smart gear system. In this paper, the authors propose a method to use this resonant return loss signal for identifying two parameters called the $$Q$$ Q value and the angular frequency of the smart gear side antenna. There are three cases of magnetic coupling that have been considered. These cases are called Open, Short, and Loaded by a 50 [Ω] resistor where the characteristics of the antenna on the smart gear side are changed via its connector by leaving Open or connecting to a Short and a 50 [Ω] resistor modules, respectively. The results indicate that the method is effective for parameter identification of the $$Q$$ Q value and the angular frequency of the smart gear side antenna for all three cases. Moreover, the analysis of the validated $$Q$$ Q value and the angular frequency also indicates the relation between these two characteristic values and the practical conditions of the smart gear. This finding consolidates the effectiveness of our developing wireless smart gear system. Article Highlights This article proposes a parameter identification method for a developing smart gear health monitoring system. By only using the resonant return loss data obtained from the monitoring antenna, there are two characteristic values of the smart gear have been achieved. This article also introduces a completed return loss equation of a magnetically coupled system. This return loss equation is helpful for the computation of characteristic parameters of the magnetically coupled system such as a wireless power transfer system or a coupled antenna system. The results figure out that the identified characteristic parameters and the physical condition of the smart gear side’s antenna circuit are related to each other. This finding affirms the effectiveness of not only the proposed parameter identification method but also the developing smart gear system.

Keywords

• Gear printed sensor
• Plastic gear health monitoring
• Failure detection
• Q value identification
• Magnetic resonant coupling
• Return loss function