Integral Sensor Fault Detection and Isolation for Railway Traction Drive

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Railway Systems Engineering
• Control Systems

Background:

• Reliability and availability of electric traction drives are critical in railway applications.
• Sensor faults are a significant cause of failures in these systems.
• Early fault detection is essential for railway traction drive manufacturers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and present an integral diagnosis strategy for sensors in railway traction drives.
• To address the need for early detection and isolation of sensor faults.
• To propose a solution that does not require hardware modifications to existing traction drives.

Main Methods:

• An observer-based approach for direct current (DC)-link voltage and catenary current sensors.
• A frequency analysis approach for motor current phase sensors.
• A hardware redundancy solution for speed sensors.
• Validation using a Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) platform with a Real Time Simulator and a commercial Traction Control Unit.

Main Results:

• The proposed integral strategy effectively detects and isolates faults in all traction drive sensors.
• The diagnostic approaches were successfully validated on a real-time HIL platform.
• The solution integrates multiple fault detection methods without requiring hardware changes.

Conclusions:

• An integral fault diagnosis solution for railway traction drive sensors has been successfully developed and validated.
• The strategy enhances the reliability and availability of electric traction drives.
• The proposed methods provide a reliable decision-making capability within a short time frame.