In this paper, an overload detecting algorithm for an excavator is presented. The proposed overload detecting algorithm is based on the time series analysis especially correlation function. The main purpose of this paper is to prevent damage or crack from the fatigue loaded on an excavator in advance. Generally, the larger data, the longer processing time, and the amount of the data used in this paper are also large, especially every sampling period, 1600 data are gathered and calculated. So this paper focuses on minimizing the number of required sensors by using the correlation function. From the cross correlation function, similar pattern sensors are eliminated and dissimilar pattern sensors are considered, and from the auto correlation function, the overload can be detected. To prove the efficiency of the proposed overload detecting algorithm, this paper shows the computer simulation results.