System and method for monitoring health of drive unit gears

A system for a vehicle having a drive unit, the system comprising:

• data processing hardware;
• and
• memory hardware in communication with the data processing hardware, the memory hardware storing instructions that, when executed on the data processing hardware, cause the data processing hardware to perform operations comprising:
• receiving a vibration signal associated with the drive unit;
• receiving one or more vehicle operating parameters comprising a motor speed signal;
• transforming the vibration signal into a phase domain based on the vibration signal;
• after transforming the vibration signal, filtering the transformed vibration signal with a time-synchronous averaging data to isolate a gear fault signature from one or more operational signatures associated with the drive unit;
• separating the gear fault signature into a plurality of gear fault signature segments;
• extracting one or more health indicators from each of the gear fault signature segments;
• estimating, for each of the one or more health indicators, a respective fault level estimate;
• fusing the respective fault level estimates to generate a fused health indicator;
• determining whether the fused health indicator exceeds a threshold health indicator;
• and
• when the fused health indicator exceeds the threshold health indicator, generating a gear health notification indicating a fault condition of the drive unit.

A vehicle comprising:

• a drive unit;
• data processing hardware;
• and
• memory hardware in communication with the data processing hardware, the memory hardware storing instructions that, when executed on the data processing hardware, cause the data processing hardware to perform operations comprising:
• receiving a vibration signal associated with the drive unit;
• receiving one or more vehicle operating parameters comprising a motor speed signal;
• transforming the vibration signal into a phase domain based on the vibration signal;
• after transforming the vibration signal, filtering the transformed vibration signal with a time-synchronous averaging process to isolate a gear fault signature from one or more operational signatures associated with the drive unit;
• separating the gear fault signature into a plurality of gear fault signature segments;
• extracting one or more health indicators from each of the gear fault signature segments;
• estimating, for each of the one or more health indicators, a respective fault level estimate;
• fusing the respective fault level estimates to generate a fused health indicator;
• determining whether the fused health indicator exceeds a threshold health indicator;
• and
• when the fused health indicator exceeds the threshold health indicator, generating a gear health notification indicating a fault condition of the drive unit.