Patent Issued for Vibration Signal Analysis For Determining Rotational Speed (USPTO 10,895,495)

2021 JAN 29 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventor Duke, Alan M. (Ferrisburg, VT), filed on March 20, 2018, was published online on February 1, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 10,895,495 is assigned to Simmonds Precision Products Inc. (Vergennes, Vermont, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “This disclosure relates generally to rotational speed determination, and more particularly to vibration signal analysis for determining rotational speed of a rotating component.

“Many complex systems of components, such as modern aircraft systems, incorporate prognostics and health management (PHM) systems to identify system fault conditions and/or predict a remaining useful life of system components. Such PHM systems often utilize vibration diagnostic techniques that use known component geometries to determine frequencies of individual components based on rotational speed of the components. Many aircraft systems, however, do not include tachometers or other speed measurement sensors to directly measure the rotational speed of components. The addition of dedicated rotational speed sensors increases system cost, space, and weight, thereby negatively impacting the economic feasibility of the vibration diagnostic system.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventor’s summary information for this patent: “In one example, a method includes sensing a time sequence of vibrational data of the rotating component using one or more sensors, converting the time sequence of vibrational data to frequency domain vibrational data, and identifying a portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to an expected rotational speed of the rotating component. The method further includes identifying a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data, and fitting the maximum vibration at the identified frequency bin index and vibrations associated with adjacent frequency bin indices to a model curve. The method further includes identifying a floating point frequency bin index corresponding to a maximum of the model curve, and determining the rotational speed of the rotating component based on the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve.

“In another example, a system includes a rotating component, one or more sensors, one or more processors, and computer-readable memory. The one or more sensors are disposed to sense a time sequence of vibrational data of the rotating component. The computer-readable memory is encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to convert the time sequence of vibrational data to frequency domain vibrational data, identify a portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to an expected rotational speed of the rotating component, and identify a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data. The computer-readable memory is further encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to fit the maximum vibration at the identified frequency bin index and vibrations associated with adjacent frequency bin indices to a model curve, identify a floating point frequency bin index corresponding to a maximum of the model curve, and determine the rotational speed of the rotating component based on the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“The invention claimed is:

“1. A method for determining rotational speed of a rotating component, the method comprising: sensing a time sequence of vibrational data of the rotating component using one or more sensors; converting the time sequence of vibrational data to frequency domain vibrational data; identifying a portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to an expected rotational speed of the rotating component; identifying a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data; fitting the maximum vibration at the identified frequency bin index and vibrations associated with adjacent frequency bin indices to a model curve; identifying a floating point frequency bin index corresponding to a maximum of the model curve; determining the rotational speed of the rotating component based on the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve; providing the rotational speed of the rotating component to a prognostics health management system of an aircraft; and identifying, by the prognostics health management system using the rotational speed, a fault condition of the rotating component; wherein identifying the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component comprises: identifying a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; and identifying the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component as a portion of the frequency domain vibrational data centered around the frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein sensing the time sequence of the vibrational data of the rotating component comprises sensing the time sequence of the vibrational data of the rotating component using one or more accelerometers.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein converting the time sequence of vibrational data to the frequency domain vibrational data comprises converting the time sequence of vibrational data to the frequency domain vibrational data using one of a discrete Fourier transform and a power spectral density transformation.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component comprises identifying the frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data according to the following equation: .times.times. ##EQU00010## wherein i.sub.estimate is the frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein S is the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein H is a defined multiple of the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein B is a number of frequency bin indices of the frequency domain vibrational data; wherein f.sub.max is half of a time-based sampling rate of the time sequence of vibrational data; and wherein round is a rounding function that outputs a nearest integer.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the model curve comprises a parabola.

“6. The method of claim 5, wherein fitting the maximum vibration at the identified frequency bin index and vibrations associated with adjacent frequency bin indices to the model curve comprises fitting the maximum vibration at the identified frequency bin index, a vibration at a frequency bin index that is sequentially-previous the identified frequency bin index, and a vibration at a frequency bin index that is sequentially-next the identified frequency bin index to the parabola using second order parabolic interpolation.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve comprises identifying the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve according to the following equation: .function.function.function.function.function. ##EQU00011## wherein j.sub.true is the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve; wherein m is the identified frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data; wherein Q.sub.m is the maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the identified frequency bin index m; wherein Q.sub.m-1 is a vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a frequency bin index that is sequentially-previous the identified frequency bin index m; and wherein Q.sub.m+1 is a vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a frequency bin index that is sequentially-next the identified frequency bin index m.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the rotational speed of the rotating component based on the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve comprises determining the rotational speed of the rotating component according to the following equation: ##EQU00012## wherein speed is the rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein d.sub.f is a ratio of a time-based sampling rate of the time sequence of vibrational data to a number of frequency bin indices of the frequency domain vibrational data; wherein i.sub.true is the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve; wherein i.sub.estimate is a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein M is half of a number of frequency bin indices within the identified portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; and wherein H is a defined multiple of the expected rotational speed of the rotating component.

“9. A system comprising: a rotating component; one or more sensors disposed to sense a time sequence of vibrational data of the rotating component; a prognostics health management system of an aircraft; and a controller device, the controller device comprising: one or more communication devices; one or more processors; and computer-readable memory encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: convert the time sequence of vibrational data to frequency domain vibrational data; identify a portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to an expected rotational speed of the rotating component by at least being configured to: identify a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; and identify the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component as a portion of the frequency domain vibrational data centered around the frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; identify a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data; fit the maximum vibration at the identified frequency bin index and vibrations associated with adjacent frequency bin indices to a model curve; identify a floating point frequency bin index corresponding to a maximum of the model curve; determine the rotational speed of the rotating component based on the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve; and output, via the one or more communication devices, the determined rotational speed of the rotating component to the prognostics health management system of the aircraft; wherein the prognostics health management system is configured to identify, using the rotational speed, a fault condition of the rotating component.

“10. The system of claim 9, wherein the one or more sensors include one or more accelerometers.

“11. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer-readable memory is further encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to convert the time sequence of vibrational data to the frequency domain vibrational data using one of a discrete Fourier transform and a power spectral density transformation.

“12. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer-readable memory is further encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to identify the frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component according to the following equation: .times.times. ##EQU00013## wherein i.sub.estimate is the frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein S is the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein H is a defined multiple of the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein B is a number of frequency bin indices of the frequency domain vibrational data; wherein f.sub.max is half of a time-based sampling rate of the time sequence of vibrational data; and wherein round is a rounding function that outputs a nearest integer.

“13. The system of claim 9, wherein the model curve comprises a parabola.

“14. The system of claim 13, wherein the computer-readable memory is further encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to fit the maximum vibration at the identified frequency bin index and vibrations associated with adjacent frequency bin indices to the model curve using second order parabolic interpolation.

“15. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer-readable memory is further encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to identify the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve according to the following equation: .function.function.function.function.function. ##EQU00014## wherein j.sub.true is the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve; wherein m is the identified frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data; wherein Q.sub.m is the maximum vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the identified frequency bin index m; wherein Q.sub.m-1 is a vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a frequency bin index that is sequentially-previous the identified frequency bin index m; and wherein Q.sub.m+1 is a vibration within the portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to a frequency bin index that is sequentially-next the identified frequency bin index m.

“16. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer-readable memory is further encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to determine the rotational speed of the rotating component based on the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve according to the following equation: ##EQU00015## wherein peed is the rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein df is a ratio of a time-based sampling rate of the time sequence of vibrational data to a number of frequency bin indices of the frequency domain vibrational data; wherein j.sub.true is the frequency bin index corresponding to the maximum of the model curve; wherein i.sub.estimate is a frequency bin index of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; wherein M is half of a number of frequency bin indices within the identified portion of the frequency domain vibrational data corresponding to the expected rotational speed of the rotating component; and wherein H is a defined multiple of the expected rotational speed of the rotating component.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Duke, Alan M. Vibration Signal Analysis For Determining Rotational Speed. U.S. Patent Number 10,895,495, filed March 20, 2018, and published online on February 1, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=10,895,495.PN.&OS=PN/10,895,495RS=PN/10,895,495

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