Abstract
Infrared thermography can measure the temperature of a surface remotely. In this article authors present a diagnostic method of incipient fault detection. The proposed approach is based on pattern recognition. It uses monochrome thermal images of the rotor with the application of an area perimeter vector and a Bayes classifier. The investigations have been carried out for direct current motor without faults and motor with shorted rotor coils. The measurements were performed in the laboratory. The efficiency of recognition using the area perimeter vector and the Bayes classifier was 100 %. The investigations show that the method based on recognition of thermal images can be profitable for engineers. The proposed method can be applied in mining, metallurgy, fuel industry and in factories where electrical motors are used.