Connected Electric Truck Powertrain: Non-Invasive Fault Detection using Ultra-Low Power Edge AI Sensor Network

This paper presents a non-invasive, real-time fault detection and predictive maintenance framework for Connected Electric Truck powertrain. Leveraging the ultra-low-power ISM330DHCX sensor’s Machine Learning Core (MLC), the system performs on-sensor processing of accelerometer and gyroscope signals using Edge AI and TinyML techniques. Decision Trees (DTs) and an eight-DT based Random Forest (RF) model were employed to classify vibration patterns under varying operating conditions. Five experiments were conducted on electric motor test benches to simulate rotor imbalance and gather data in both normal and faulty states. Vibration signals were first classified into three broader fault categories and then mapped into 12 subclasses using a novel output mapping scheme. Guided by the Design, Implementation, Potential Failure and Functional Failure (DIPF) curve, this framework enables accurate detection of rotor unbalance faults. Experimental results showed that while single-DT models achieved high training accuracies ($95-98.42 \%$) but poor validation performance ($\lt 50 \%$), the eight-DT based Random Forest with subclass splitting significantly improved generalization, achieving $98.74 \%$ validation accuracy. By minimizing power consumption and bandwidth requirements, this on-sensor Edge AI sensor network approach offers a scalable solution for predictive maintenance, with the potential to reduce downtime and maintenance costs by $\mathbf{3 0 - 5 0 \%}$. The findings highlight the promise of ultra-low-power intelligent sensing for enhancing the reliability and efficiency of Connected Electric Trucks.