The automated industry is in a growing phase and the human tasks is increasingly replaced by robots and other automation solutions. The increasing industry entails that the automations must be reliable and condition monitoring plays an important role in achieving that ambition. By utilizing condition monitoring of a machine it is possible to detect a wear before it turns into a critical damage that could result in complete failure. A useful tool when monitoring the condition of a machine is by sampling and analyzing vibrations. Vibrations are generated by the moving parts of the machinery and high amplitude vibrations can often be seen as an indication of the developed faults. The frequency of these vibrations can be calculated and then detected in the sampled data. Today there is no condition monitoring system that monitor industrial robots by analyzing vibrations. The problem with analyzing robots, is that they operate with a varying speed. Since the running conditions are changing rapidly all the time, this means that the vibration frequencies also changes constantly. This is due to the fact that the vibration frequencies are dependent and affected of the operation speed. This research is a sequel and continuation of a research from previous year. The purpose of the research is to investigate the possibility to monitor the condition of a gearbox in a industrial robot, by utilizing vibration analysis. The robot that has been tested under tuff conditions in order to reach a failure, is an ABB IRB 6600. To sample data in a stationary way even tough the speed is changing during the sample time, the method order tracking has been utilized. This makes it possible to sample data with numbers of measurement per rotation instead of sampling according to time. This is processed by SKF:s condition monitoring system multilog IMx and the signal is then presented as a time waveform in the software @ptitude Observer. In Observer, it is also possible to show the signal in a spectrum by using Fast Fourier Transform. By utilizing MATLAB, the research has also resulted in a new analyzing method. This method is called Spectral Auto-Correlation. The methodology of this practice is to correlated the time waveform with itself in order to see which frequencies that are reappearing. The correlated result is then calculated with a Fast Fourier Transform to illustrate the signal in a spectrum for further analysis. During the analysis of the parts in the gearbox, critical defects were found on both the cycloidal disks. The fault frequency for the defects were calculated and analyzed from the data. This resulted in trends where the amplitude from the fault frequency had more than doubled over the time the robot has been operating in the project. This report also include a production simulation where a robot cell from SKF is simulated. The robot cell is simulated with and without a condition monitoring system. A comparison was then made to see what advantages there were with utilizing a condition monitoring system. The result of the simulation was an increased productivity with two to three percent.

Dans ce mémoire, des questions associées à la simulation en régime transitoire et à l'intégration au réseau de distribution d'une génératrice asynchrone privée (« NUIG : Non-Utility Induction Génération ») sont étudiées. L'objectif de ce travail est de vérifier l'influence de différents facteurs tels le niveau et l'emplacement de la charge et de la compensation capacitive ainsi que le type de charge sur les phénomènes d'auto-excitation de la génératrice asynchrone et les surtensions indésirables qui résultent d'un défaut et/ou d'une condition d'îlotage. Les résultats de simulation montrent que les phénomènes d'auto-excitation semblent très complexes et multidimensionnels et ils impliquent l'interaction de différents facteurs. Les courbes obtenues dépendent fortement des spécifications du système et il est difficile de dériver des critères précis qui puissent être appliqués de façon générale à tous les cas d'intégration de la génération asynchrone au réseau. Cependant, des principes directeurs pratiques pour limiter l'occurrence de l'auto-excitation ont été dérivés et selon ces principes directeurs, un système de protection et un réglage de rélai recommandés sont présentés pour l'interconnexion de génératrices asynchrones privées (« NUIG ») au réseau de distribution. / In this thesis, some topics related to the dynamic simulation and operations of Non-Utility Induction Generation (NUIG) are investigated. The objective of this thesis is to put focus on the influence of different factors such as load and capacitive compensation levels and positions as well as load type on induction generator self-excitation phenomenon and related overvoltages, resulting from a fault and/or an unwanted islanding condition. The results of simulations showed the self-excitation phenomenon appear to be very complex and multidimensional and implying the interaction of many different factors. The obtained curves and behaviors highly depend on the system specifics, and it is difficult to drive precise criteria applicable in a general manner to ail cases of generation’s integration. However, practical guidelines to limit the occurrence of self-excitation have been derived and, as per these guidelines, recommended protection System and relay settings are presented for interconnection of NUIGs to the distribution networks.

One of the objectives of this study is to develop a methodology, together with a set of software programs that evaluate, in a power system, the risks of catastrophic failures caused by hidden failures in the hardware or software components of the protection system. The disturbance propagation mechanism is revealed by the analysis of the 1977 New York Blackout. The step-by-step process of estimating the relay hidden failure probability is presented. A Dynamic Event Tree for the risk-based analysis of system catastrophic failures is proposed. A reduced 179-bus WSCC sample system is studied and the simulation results obtained from California sub-system are analyzed. System weak links are identified in the case study. The issues relating to the load and generation uncertainties for the risk assessment of system vulnerabilities are addressed. A prototype system - the Hidden Failure Monitoring and Control System (HFMCS) - is proposed to mitigate the risk of power system catastrophic failures. Three main functional modules - Hidden Failure Monitoring, Hidden Failure Control and Misoperation Tracking Database - and their designs are presented. Hidden Failure Monitoring provides the basis that allows further control actions to be initiated. Hidden Failure Control is realized by using Adaptive Dependability/Security Protection, which can effectively stop possible relay involvement from triggering or propagating disturbance under stressed system conditions. As an integrated part of the HFMCS, a Misoperation Tracking Database is proposed to track the performance of automatic station equipment, hence providing automatic management of misoperation records for hidden failure analysis. / Ph. D.