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Actuators
Special Issues
Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems
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Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems

A special issue of Actuators (ISSN 2076-0825).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2021) | Viewed by 22571

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Massimo Sorli

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Guest Editor
Politecnico di Torino, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy
Interests: servosystems; modeling and simulation; mechatronic systems; rotary and fixed wing actuation systems; prognostics and health management; test bench design and simulation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Giovanni Jacazio

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Guest Editor
Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
Interests: actuation and control systems for aerospace and rail vehicle applications; prognostics and health management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Andrea De Martin

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10139 Torino, Italy
Interests: prognostics and health management; actuation and control systems for aerospace applications; development of fluid power components
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Antonio Carlo Bertolino

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10139 Torino, Italy
Interests: actuators; automation and robotics; ball screws; digital twin; dynamic simulation; flight control systems; multibody dynamics; actuation and control systems for aerospace applications; test bench design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Actuators, whether in electric, hydraulic, pneumatic or thermal technology, are sized in the design phase to guarantee the expected performances, which must be maintained even during the expected operating life.

The development of effective advanced diagnostics and reliable prognostics and health management (PHM) systems for actuators could help to assess the reliability of a product in its actual lifecycle conditions, observe the ongoing degradations, and mitigate the risk associated with the occurrence of unpredicted failures.

In order to achieve these objectives, it is necessary to include different technologies aimed at conceiving an integrated framework to sensing, data processing, fault diagnosis, and failure prognosis, supported by physics-based models and by a wide campaign of measurements, also on ad hoc designed test rigs, and finally accompanied by a comprehensive systems engineering-based approach to develop, analyze, and evaluate/validate rigorous diagnostic, prognostic, and uncertainty representation validated algorithms.

This Special Issue of Actuators is focused on advancements in health management for actuators used in the wide field of engineering, such as industrial, automotive, aeronautical and space, ships, railways, energy, buildings, etc. We invite the submission of research papers on the above subject, though we are particularly interested in papers that show how the results of the work presented in them can contribute to progress toward the abovementioned objectives.

Prof. Dr. Massimo Sorli
Prof. Dr. Giovanni Jacazio
Dr. Andrea De Martin
Dr. Antonio Carlo Bertolino
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Actuators is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Methodologies for fault identification
  • Actuator reliability
  • Failure mode and effect criticality analysis (FMECA)
  • Physics of failure mechanisms
  • Health monitoring strategies
  • Automatic measurement of actuators’ parameters
  • Prognostics-based maintenance
  • Failure time calculation
  • Virtual testing
  • Test rigs
  • Test validation of PHM for actuators
  • Fault-tolerant actuators

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  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 4877 KiB  
Article
Model-Based Condition-Monitoring and Jamming-Tolerant Control of an Electro-Mechanical Flight Actuator with Differential Ball Screws
by Gianpietro Di Rito, Benedetto Luciano, Nicola Borgarelli and Marco Nardeschi
Actuators 2021, 10(9), 230; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10090230 - 9 Sep 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3840
Abstract
The work deals with the development of deterministic model-based condition-monitoring algorithms for an electromechanical flight control actuator with fault-tolerant architecture, in which two permanent magnets synchronous motors are coupled with differential ball screws in speed-summing paradigm, so that the system can operate even [...] Read more.
The work deals with the development of deterministic model-based condition-monitoring algorithms for an electromechanical flight control actuator with fault-tolerant architecture, in which two permanent magnets synchronous motors are coupled with differential ball screws in speed-summing paradigm, so that the system can operate even after a motor fault, an inverter fault or a mechanical jamming. To demonstrate the potential applicability of the system for safety-critical aerospace applications, the failure transients related to major fault modes have to be characterised and analysed. By focusing the attention to jamming faults, a detailed nonlinear model of the actuator is developed from physical first principles and experimentally validated in both time and frequency domains for normal condition and with different types of jamming. The validated model is then used to design the condition-monitoring algorithms and to characterize the system failure transient, by simulating mechanical blocks in different locations of the transmission. The operability after the fault, obtained via fault-tolerant control strategy and position regulator reconfiguration, is also verified, by highlighting and discussing possible enhancements and criticalities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems)
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18 pages, 7900 KiB  
Article
A Case Study on the Detection and Prognosis of Internal Leakages in Electro-Hydraulic Flight Control Actuators
by Antonio Carlo Bertolino, Andrea De Martin, Giovanni Jacazio and Massimo Sorli
Actuators 2021, 10(9), 215; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10090215 - 31 Aug 2021
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3277
Abstract
Electro-hydraulic servo-actuators (EHSAs) are currently considered the state-of-the art solution for the control of the primary flight control systems of civil and military aircraft. Combining the expected service life of a commercial aircraft with the fact that electro-hydraulic technology is employed in the [...] Read more.
Electro-hydraulic servo-actuators (EHSAs) are currently considered the state-of-the art solution for the control of the primary flight control systems of civil and military aircraft. Combining the expected service life of a commercial aircraft with the fact that electro-hydraulic technology is employed in the vast majority of currently in-service aircraft and is planned to be used on future platforms as well, the development of an effective Prognostic and Health Management (PHM) system could provide significant advantages to fleet operators and aircraft maintenance, such as the reduction of unplanned flight disruptions and increased availability of the aircraft. The occurrence of excessive internal leakage within the EHSAs is one of the most common causes of return from the field of flight control actuators, making this failure mode a priority in the definition of any dedicated PHM routine. This paper presents a case study on the design of a prognostic system for this degradation mode, in the context of a wider effort toward the definition of a prognostic framework suitable to work on in-flight data. The study is performed by means of a high-fidelity simulation model supported by experimental activities. Results of both the simulation and the experimental work are used to select a suitable feature, then implemented within the prognostic framework based on particle filtering. The algorithm is at first theoretically discussed, and then tested against several degradation patterns. Performances are evaluated through state-of-the-art metrics, showing promising results and providing the basis towards future applications on real in-flight data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems)
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18 pages, 900 KiB  
Article
A New Method for Friction Estimation in EMA Transmissions
by Gaetano Quattrocchi, Alessandro Iacono, Pier C. Berri, Matteo D. L. Dalla Vedova and Paolo Maggiore
Actuators 2021, 10(8), 194; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10080194 - 11 Aug 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2889
Abstract
The increasing interest for adopting electromechanical actuators (EMAs) on aircraft demands improved diagnostic and prognostic methodologies to be applied to such systems in order to guarantee acceptable levels of reliability and safety. While diagnostics methods and techniques can help prevent fault propagation and [...] Read more.
The increasing interest for adopting electromechanical actuators (EMAs) on aircraft demands improved diagnostic and prognostic methodologies to be applied to such systems in order to guarantee acceptable levels of reliability and safety. While diagnostics methods and techniques can help prevent fault propagation and performance degradation, prognostic methods can be applied in tandem to reduce maintenance costs and increase overall safety by enabling predictive and condition-based maintenance schedules. In this work, a predictive approach for EMAs friction torque estimation is proposed. The algorithm is based on the reconstruction of the residual torque in mechanical transmissions. The quantity is then sampled and an artificial neural network (ANN) is used to obtain an estimation of the current health status of the transmission. Early results demonstrate that such an approach can predict the transmission health status with good accuracy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems)
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29 pages, 12385 KiB  
Article
Design and Evaluation of Fault-Tolerant Electro-Mechanical Actuators for Flight Controls of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
by Mohamed A. A. Ismail, Simon Wiedemann, Colin Bosch and Christoph Stuckmann
Actuators 2021, 10(8), 175; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10080175 - 25 Jul 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4679
Abstract
Electro-mechanical actuators (EMAs) are a primary actuation technology for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Intensive research has been conducted for designing and evaluating fault-tolerant EMAs for flight controls of UAVs to ensure their compliance with new airworthiness requirements for safe operation over civilian zones. [...] Read more.
Electro-mechanical actuators (EMAs) are a primary actuation technology for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Intensive research has been conducted for designing and evaluating fault-tolerant EMAs for flight controls of UAVs to ensure their compliance with new airworthiness requirements for safe operation over civilian zones. The state-of-the-art research involves several fault-tolerant architectures for EMAs based on parallel electric motors or a single motor with internal fault-tolerant features. In this study, a fault-tolerant architecture is introduced, comprised of two serial electric motors driven by two isolated controllers and a health monitoring system. The procedures of developing various fault-tolerant features are discussed with a deep focus on designing health monitoring functions and evaluating their influence on the overall actuator stability and availability. This work has been conducted and evaluated based on operational data for ALAADy: a heavy gyrocopter-type UAV at DLR (German Aerospace Center). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems)
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14 pages, 2614 KiB  
Article
Recognition Method of Digital Meter Readings in Substation Based on Connected Domain Analysis Algorithm
by Ziyuan Zhang, Zexi Hua, Yongchuan Tang, Yunjia Zhang, Weijun Lu and Congfei Dai
Actuators 2021, 10(8), 170; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10080170 - 22 Jul 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2993
Abstract
Aiming at the problem that the number and decimal point of digital instruments in substations are prone to misdetection and missed detection, a method of digital meter readings in a substation based on connected domain analysis algorithm is proposed. This method uses Faster [...] Read more.
Aiming at the problem that the number and decimal point of digital instruments in substations are prone to misdetection and missed detection, a method of digital meter readings in a substation based on connected domain analysis algorithm is proposed. This method uses Faster R-CNN (Faster Region Convolutional Neural Network) as a positioning network to localize the dial area, and after acquiring the partial image, it enhances the useful information of the digital area. YOLOv4 (You Only Look Once) convolutional neural network is used as the detector to detect the digital area. The purpose is to distinguish the numbers and obtain the digital area that may contain a decimal point or no decimal point at the tail. Combined with the connected domain analysis algorithm, the difference between the number of connected domain categories and the area ratio of the digital area is analyzed, and the judgment of the decimal point is realized. The method reduces the problem of mutual interference among categories when detecting YOLOv4. The experimental results show that the method improves the detection accuracy of the algorithm. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems)
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20 pages, 5685 KiB  
Article
A Novel Deep Learning Model for Mechanical Rotating Parts Fault Diagnosis Based on Optimal Transport and Generative Adversarial Networks
by Xuanquan Wang, Xiongjun Liu, Ping Song, Yifan Li and Youtian Qie
Actuators 2021, 10(7), 146; https://doi.org/10.3390/act10070146 - 28 Jun 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2805
Abstract
To solve the poor real-time performance of the existing fault diagnosis algorithms on transmission system rotating components, this paper proposes a novel high-dimensional OT-Caps (Optimal Transport–Capsule Network) model. Based on the traditional capsule network algorithm, an auxiliary loss is introduced during the offline [...] Read more.
To solve the poor real-time performance of the existing fault diagnosis algorithms on transmission system rotating components, this paper proposes a novel high-dimensional OT-Caps (Optimal Transport–Capsule Network) model. Based on the traditional capsule network algorithm, an auxiliary loss is introduced during the offline training process to improve the network architecture. Simultaneously, an optimal transport theory and a generative adversarial network are introduced into the auxiliary loss, which accurately depicts the error distribution of the fault characteristic. The proposed model solves the low real-time performance of the capsule network algorithm due to complex architecture, long calculation time, and oversized hardware resource consumption. Meanwhile, it ensures the high precision, early prediction, and transfer aptitude of fault diagnosis. Finally, the model’s effectiveness is verified by the public data sets and the actual faults data of the transmission system, which provide technical support for the application. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis on Actuation Systems)
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