An Acoustic Emission IoT Device for Wind Turbine Rotor Blade Condition Monitoring

Abstract

This paper discusses the development and implementation of a wind turbine rotor blade condition monitoring system based on the acoustic emission non-destructive method. The condition monitoring system’s core is an acoustic emission IoT device capable of detecting active damage on the blades using micro-electro-mechanical acoustic sensors. The signals detected by the sensors are pre-processed in the IoT device and transmitted, via a Wi-Fi access point in the wind turbine nacelle, or via cellular network, to a datadriven application residing in the cloud. The data processing is completed in the cloud, where the information extracted is used to calculate proprietary quantities that are displayed and tracked. These proprietary quantities are related to the structural health of the wind turbine rotor blades and are used to rank the blades in a wind farm according to their condition. This ranking helps the wind farm site operator to prioritize inspection and plan maintenance. This condition monitoring system based on the acoustic emission IoT device has been implemented in several wind farms across North America and Europe.