Electrical Fault Logging With Circular Buffer Memory
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current fault-detection and analysis systems in electrical devices are inefficient due to either insufficient data collection or excessive memory and storage requirements, which can hinder effective diagnosis of fault conditions in electrical devices like power converters.
Innovation Solution
A fault-detection and analysis system that temporarily stores device information in a first memory, such as a FIFO buffer, and transfers it to non-volatile storage only upon detection of a fault condition, minimizing data storage needs and enabling root-cause analysis without significant resource usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If device information is continuously stored in memory for fault analysis, then fault diagnosis capability is improved, but memory resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-allocates a buffer memory structure with head and tail pointers ready to receive device information. This preliminary preparation allows the buffer to immediately start storing fault data when needed, without requiring large permanent memory allocation. The buffer is set up in advance with the capability to circularly store information, enabling efficient fault capture when faults occur.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically manages buffer storage by continuously updating the tail pointer to store new device information and the head pointer to track the oldest data. This dynamic pointer management allows the buffer to adapt its storage content in real-time, automatically overwriting old data when full and preserving recent fault-related information without requiring fixed large memory capacity.
2Reliability
If all device information is stored permanently for analysis, then complete fault analysis is enabled, but storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the most recent and relevant device information by using a buffer with head and tail pointers. Instead of storing all historical data permanently, the buffer extracts and maintains only the latest fault-related information that is most useful for diagnosis. This extraction approach provides complete analysis of recent faults while minimizing storage requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system discards old device information automatically when the buffer is full, with the head pointer moving forward to overwrite oldest data. This discarding mechanism recovers storage space continuously, allowing the system to maintain a rolling window of recent fault data without accumulating large permanent storage requirements, while still capturing complete information for recent fault analysis.
Data Source
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AI summary
According to one example, an electrical device is provided comprising an input configured to receive power from at least one power supply, an output configured to provide the power to at least one load, a first memory configured to store data temporarily, a second memory, the second memory being non-volatile memory, and at least one control device configured to acquire data indicative of at least one parameter of the power responsive to a sample condition being met, store the acquired data in the first memory, determine that a fault condition exists based on the acquired data, the fault condition being indicative of a fault of one or more electrical-device components, and store the acquired data in the second memory responsive to determining that the fault condition exists.