A Smart Combined Wireless Sensor for Vibration and AE Signals Measurement

Mechanical and insulation defects can lead to severe faults in power equipment, making it crucial to conduct a comprehensive and accurate fusion diagnosis. Vibration and acoustic emission (AE) are two effective ways to detect the above two defects. This paper proposes a reliable smart vibration and AE combined wireless sensor featuring both low cost and low power consumption, which is suitable for real-time assessment of power equipment conditions. Initially, the sensor structure is designed and its feasibility is verified by simulation. Subsequently, a developed Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is integrated in the prototype which realizes data acquisition, storage, processing and transmission. Moreover, a fast impedance response self-calibration method based on pseudorandom binary maximum length sequence (M-sequence), is proposed with the aim of remotely calibrating the sensor in an efficient and convenient way. The sensor performance were assessed achieving very promising results. In particular, the vibration sensitivity is 510 mV/g and AE sensitivity exceeds 70 dB. The data rate surpasses 1 Mbps within 8 m range, and the life time can be at least one year. In addition, self-calibration consumes only 6.82 ms and it has a negligible power consumption. Finally, the vibration-partial discharge (PD) joint experiment demonstrates effective measurement capabilities of the sensor. The presented sensor, as an example of advanced industrial measurement, provides a smart solution for mechanical and insulation defects fusion detection.