Practical application-focused online V-I curve monitoring system for power semiconductor devices
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: As reliability is growing critical in power electronics systems, preventive maintenance for power semiconductor devices is crucial for extending system lifespan and improving robustness. However, conventional time-based maintenance often increases operational costs and unexpected downtime due to significant variation and uncertainty in the power semiconductor device's lifetime. In contrast, condition-based maintenance offers an optimized supervision scheme based on real-time health monitoring, reducing unnecessary costs and increasing overall system reliability. This paper presents a practical, non-intrusive, online condition monitoring system for detecting degradations in power semiconductor devices. The developed V-I curve monitoring system accurately measures V CE(SAT) - I C curves for IGBT and V F - I F curves for power diode during the normal operation of a full-bridge inverter. A novel conduction current ( I C ) sensing method based on a low-cost, tiny PCB sensor and a two-stage integrator was proposed. On-state voltage ( V ON ) is measured by a diode-based circuit, and case temperature ( T C ) is sensed by a thermocouple. Real-time V ON - I C - T C samples are captured simultaneously with 16-bit ADCs of the microcontroller and stored in the SD card. Acquired V-I curve data is analyzed using two statistical approaches to detect bond wire and solder layer degradations. Both the residual-based fit model and the multivariate T 2 outlier methods successfully detected abnormal conditions, and comparisons are made for these two approaches.
Authors: Yandagkhuu Bayarsaikhan, Ichiro Omura
Institution: Kyushu Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,500
OpenAlex ID: W4413771779