Degradation Monitoring of Low-Voltage Electromagnetic Coil Insulation Based on Microscopic Image Analysis

Electromagnetic coils are widely used in a variety of industries, and their insulation damage is one of the main factors which results in failure of solenoid-operated valves and motors. This paper provides a novel method for degradation monitoring of low-voltage coil insulation based on microscopic image analysis. Degradation-sensitive color features from RGB, HSV and HSL color spaces are identified to quantify the appearance differences between healthy and degraded magnet wires, which provides a new way for coil health monitoring. Comparing to the existing high-frequency electrical signal based degradation monitoring methods, the proposed method is low-cost and easy to apply for coil insulation test.