Incipient instability real-time warning via adaptive wavelet synchrosqueezed transform: Onboard applications from compressors to gas turbine engines

To address the limitations of existing stall/surge warning methods—including variations in research subjects, sensor configurations, computational complexity, and the universality of thresholds—this study proposes a novel incipient instability warning approach utilizing adaptive wavelet synchrosqueezed transform. Each detection cycle begins with the acquisition of a low-pass filtered and downsampled total pressure signal from the compressor outlet, captured via a sliding window to represent the pressure sample. Then, the adaptive wavelet synchrosqueezed transform (AWSST), employing dynamic discretization with scales and synchrosqueezing technology, analyzes the real-time pressure sample to extract precise instantaneous frequency changes at low computational costs. Features of instability severity are derived from the amplitude, phase, and pressure drop within the time-frequency spectrum, leading to the formulation of a warning logic. The proposed method's effectiveness and universality are validated through hardware-in-loop (HIL) tests using multiple surge test data. Results show that the proposed method outperforms traditional real-time warning methods, which rely on the pressure change rate, by enhancing accuracy and advancing warning times by 15 ms–50 ms. Notably, the threshold is universal for compressors or engines of the same model. By increasing the acceptable performance decline criteria, compressors, turbofan engines, and turboshaft engines can employ a common set of thresholds.