Advanced condition monitoring of IGBT power modules to address evolving industrial and automotive regulations

Condition monitoring is a key enabler for improving the availability and reliability of power electronic components, converters, and systems, while also reducing lifetime costs associated with maintenance and repairs. Despite numerous proposed solutions, their adoption in industrial and automotive applications remains limited. Main reasons for this are high implementation complexity, cost constraints, insufficient robustness and missing legal requirements. With the shift toward electrification and autonomous mobility, ensuring the dependable operation of power electronic systems, particularly in electric vehicles, has become more critical than ever. This paper underscores the need for advanced condition monitoring methods tailored to electric mobility and examines the limitations of conventional approaches such as junction temperature-based monitoring and traditional condition monitoring techniques, which often lack accuracy, selectivity, and long-term applicability. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a novel multi-faceted condition monitoring strategy for Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT) power modules. A modified gate drive unit measures junction temperature cycles to detect specific faults such as chip-solder delamination and cooling system contamination. Moreover, features like real-time load history recording and phase current measurement are integrated, enabling predictive maintenance and improved reliability in electric vehicle power electronics. Thus, the proposed CM technique integrates several functionalities and therefore has the potential to be economically attractive. This paper for the first time investigates the CM concept in a real voltage source inverter that is operated on an electric machine test bench. The results show that the concept represents a working and applicable approach towards condition monitoring of IGBT power modules with the potential to support predictive maintenance and meet regulatory compliance in next-generation mobility systems.