POWER SWITCH HEALTH MONITORING USING MOTOR CURRENT SIGNATURES

The health condition of power switches can be effectively monitored using a non-intrusive method called Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA). The concept is to treat the electric motor as an implicit transducer built into a motor-driven equipment, the current behaviour can thus be used to show various health conditions of the motor as well as the load it is driving. In this paper, the application of MCSA technology to monitor the health condition of power switches in railway systems is described. Actual current signatures were collected from various locations within the Canadian National Railway (CNR) network and these signatures were analyzed, compared and presented. An experimental automatic diagnostic tool based on neural networks was also developed. The objective of this development is to explore the feasibility of using such a tool for continuous monitoring and diagnostic purposes. In summary, the findings show promising results which could lead to better reliability performance of the power switches and lower maintenance costs