Cognitive Power Electronics for Intelligent Drive Technology

Reliable and failure-operable motor and inverter solutions are essential for a variety of applications. Advanced diagnostic and condition monitoring methods can contribute in reducing component-induced system failures, support demand based or predictive maintenance and therefore increase the uptime of the systems. Developing such additional functionalities requires power electronic systems in combination with intelligent algorithms that can be implemented in modern drive systems. Within this paper, the concept of "Cognitive Power Electronics 4.0" (CPE4.0) for electric drive-applications is presented, which focuses on a drive inverter system with the inclusion of intelligent diagnostics based on available sensor data of the motor and inverter system. An intelligent drive development platform for modular experimental and simulative development, testing and implementation of intelligent functions is described. The drive development platform is based on a state-of-the-art motor and inverter system, which are widely applied in the field. The CPE4.0 approach is demonstrated by the example of algorithm development and their experimental validation for a motor bearing fault detection.