Mechanical fault detection in an elevator by remote monitoring

The elevator system is one of the most common applications of the induction motor as it is used in many buildings. The safety and reliability of an elevator system is of great importance as it carries people and its failure can result in unplanned outages making the building very uncomfortable. Usually, the ordinary inspections are not able to detect some early stage faults in the elevator system such as the ones due to the building wall fissures and movements, resulting in misalignment of the elevator guides. This paper presents a method that uses the induction motor of the elevator system as a sensor in order to detect this kind of mechanical fault.