To build a preventive maintenance system a number of elements are needed
- First, automated condition monitoring must be installed on the target machines. This monitoring can involve visual inspection with cameras, measurement of vibration with accelerometers, measurement of noise levels or ultrasonic sound with microphones, and heat or humidity measurements, for example.
- Next, some embedded processing is required to handle the first analysis of the raw data, turning it into useful information that can be shared with supervising systems. For example, the embedded software can continuously run a comparison of the vibration characteristics of the machine over time to determine when changes are occurring. By embedding the processing capabilities in the sensor unit, the amount of data that needs to be communicated is vastly reduced. This is particularly important for visual inspection where the amount of data can quickly become huge.
- Next, the information must be communicated to local and remote supervising systems. This communication must be done securely and efficiently taking into account the infrastructure of the plant to determine what kind of connectivity is best suited to the task. For example, an existing plant lacking wiring for sensors would best use wireless communication as a cost-effective and fast way to implement a connected sensor network.
- Lastly, a predictive model for the equipment failure mode(s) must be created. Engineers can build this model on theoretical failure models combined with the data collected from actual field installations. When a large and reliable dataset is available correlating the sensor data and actual failure mechanisms, you can use machine-learning techniques to create a more refine predictive-maintenance model.
The conditions for the widespread adoption of predictive maintenance are now in place with the availability of all the key components, combined with cloud services and artificial intelligence.
ST offers a range of solutions for predictive maintenance
- Motion, vibration and Environmental sensors including products with a 10-year longevity guarantee
- MEMS microphones capable of ultra-sonic noise detection
- Microcontrollers with a range of processing power and embedded peripherals
- Wireless connectivity solutions including Bluetooth and Sub-1 GHz
- Wired connectivity including IO-Link and Power line communications
