Work Will Use Predictive Analytics to Monitor for Wind Turbine Faults
Michigan Aerospace Corporation (MAC), an advanced engineering and products company, today announced that it has been awarded a Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant to apply its unique approach to predictive analytics to condition monitoring for wind turbines. Turbines typically have numerous sensors collecting information from subsystems such as the gearbox, drivetrain, and blade-pitch system, with the overall control system raising an alarm if any sensor goes out of its acceptable range. Failures, however, can occur without warning if sensors do not exceed their limits prior to breakdown. MAC’s predictive analytics software will simultaneously analyze the many sensor outputs and automatically identify trends that may lead to premature failure and does not require supervised training. MAC’s past experience with applying similar software to complex data analysis problems, such as NASA and Department of Defense (DoD) platforms, will be key to this effort.