Runout Tracking in Electric Motors Using Self-Mixing Interferometry

Abstract

In this paper, a self-mixing interferometry sensor has been used as a proximity probe to measure possible runout in permanent magnet synchronous motors, for fault diagnosis. A general procedure for the measurement of the 2-D trajectory of the motor shaft is described in detail, including procedures for the characterization of the uncertainty due to the shape of the shaft, and the management of speckle noise. The performance of the proposed sensor has been compared to that of a commercial Polytec laser vibrometer, for validation purposes. Results show inaccuracies in the order of ±6 μm, which agree well with the measured uncertainty introduced by shaft surface imperfections.