Contactless Fault Detection of a DC Motor Direction of Rotation Using Its Stray Magnetic Field

Abstract

In large-scale manufacturing and assembly applications, especially when trying to automate most steps, implementing quality control as early in the process as possible is the key to prevent expenses later. We deal mainly with the production of DC motor powered fuel pumps, which are commonly used in the automotive industry. The goal of this paper is to present a newly developed technique for non-invasive fault detection of a DC motor’s direction of rotation using a stray magnetic field out of the motor chassis. The results presented in this paper show that it is possible to detect faults even on low-power motors while the algorithm is kept as simple as possible to allow for large-scale deployment on a production line. It also gives new insight into the behavior of the stray magnetic field of electric motors, which may benefit other applications and future research.