A novel centroid-based diagnostic method of the power switches in five-leg Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) is proposed in this paper. Using a vectorial multi-machine description, a five-phase drive presenting an opened switch or an opened phase faults has typical operating characteristics in comparison to classical three-phase drives. Based on such characteristics, this work aims to provide a simple and robust diagnostic process for switches fault regardless of the shape of the back-EMFs (harmonic components) and the transient states due to the load variation. Original theoretical developments are presented. Experimental results are shown to validate the proposed strategy