Asset tracking in Industry 4.0

November 8, 2018ripplesiotIOT asset tracking, IOT in factories, IOT in logistics, IOT sensors, IOT solutionsasset tracking sensors, Industrial equipment tracking, Industry 2.0 tracking solutions, Tracking assets in factories

Factory asset management systems

Emergence of Industry 4.0 and smart factories have made it a necessity for manufacturing industries to adopt modern practices to optimise their production processes. Valuable asset tracking and monitoring wireless technology are being adopted by leading industries for asset intelligence – tracking and monitoring of critical assets, their location and working environment.

These wireless monitoring technologies can also be classified under factory asset management systems in which industries leverage such sensor technologies to prevent equipment failure and to significantly improve asset performance and extend their life. This digital transformation technology is playing an important role in many mainstream industries such as as logistics, warehousing, healthcare, fleet management, shipping, and factory automation.

“Wireless (Active RFid tag) temperature sensing of a 33 KV high voltage transformer. Thrilled to see the performance and the immense opportunity it opens for asset tracking & condition monitoring of critical assets like transformers and electrical panels,” says Mr. Balasubramaniam Somasundaram, plant Engineering & Maintenance, ZF Windpower

With manufacturing industries aiming to adopt Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, product-life cycle management, efficient production process control, supply chain visibility, and just in time logistics have increasingly become a necessity.

Owing to this platonic shift, high value asset tracking solutions are being adopted by leading corporations practicing Industry 4.0, and are anticipated to greatly impact the growth of various industries in the coming years.

This disruptive technology allows manufacturers to track a high value asset through the entire stage of production, their real-time location and status, and generate various reports which help them to monitor and take important actions accordingly.

Technology Adoption in valuable asset tracking

These unique wireless asset tracking solutions also helps in monitoring real time data regarding plant & machinery and equipment to plan maintenance activities and reduce preventive maintenance costs, besides. Industries involved in warehousing, distribution & supply chain logistics, who are the main adopters of cold chain / asset tracking solutions, are able to track truck location, movement, tilt, temperature, shock & environment condition. These key forces pave the way for the adoption of wireless asset tracking technologies in smart factories and warehouses.

Currently, wireless asset tracking technologies are in perpectual developmental stage and undergoing enhancements due to the emergence of 5G, Sigfox, LoRa, Narrow Band IOT (NbIOT) etc that are telecom industry driven disruptions.

The asset tracking technoliges need to balance between ease of deployment, battery autonomy, transmission range, device size, wireless protocol, security and safety norms.

Some industries use active RFid, the highly proven, widely deployed technology for asset tracking, equipment monitoring, and physically securing high value assets. Ripples IoT provides best in class, tamper proof, miniature sensor devices, dashboard software and data visualisation tools for valuable asset tracking.

Vibration sensors for anomaly detection

November 7, 2018ripplesiotIOT in factories, IOT sensors, IOT solutions

Piezo electric vs MEMS vibration monitoring

Vibration is a form of imperfection. Early detection of vibration or monitoring of such anomaly is one of the key ways to reducing downtime in an industry, ergo, increasing its efficiency. Vibration sensors come in to play in such scenarios. Frequency domain analysis of a vibration sensor output from a machine helps one understand its present condition. This data can be accumulated and aggregated for anomaly detection in the functioning of the machine.

Piezo electric accelerometers were initially used for the detection of vibration but MEMS accelerometers are proving to be more effective in light of the 4th industrial revolution also nicknamed Industry 4.0 practices, which has Industrial IOT as its backbone.

Vibration sensors – Piezo electric vs MEMS

Image result for piezoelectric vibration sensor

MEMS based accelerometers triumph over the conventional piezo electric accelerometers by virtue of its self testing capability and their ability to provide real time analysis of machine data for visualisation purposes. Even though an MEMS accelerometer also requires FFT analysis of data, the bulk of hardware is reduced in an MEMS based accelerometer.

Piezo-based sensor outputs are weak in a noisy environment hence increasing complexity in extracting usable outputs from it in such scenarios, whereas MEMS sensors come packed with more profound features and tight performance specifications in tiny packages. Equipment vibration profile is limited in piezo electric based sensors as they are usually single axis implementations.

Tri-axial MEMS accelerometers will truly prove to be the forerunners in the vibration sensing segment of Industry 4.0 in the coming years not only because of their low power micro-controller pairing capabilities but also because of their real-time FFT analytic ability that aid in detecting trends that would otherwise prove to hinder operations in the long run.

Ripples IOT offers MEMS sensor based condition monitoring solutions for smart factories. Read condition monitoring FAQ

Vibration detection

October 4, 2018ripplesiotData visualisation, IOT in factories, IOT in manufacturing, IOT sensors, IOT solutions

Early warning systems for factories

To measure vibrations we may measure displacement, velocity or acceleration using displacement sensors, velocity sensors or accelerometers. Among them, Accelerometer sensor is commonly used for vibration analysis and is capable of measuring machine accelerations, tilt, and vibration or shock. Condition monitoring and Predictive maintenance are the 2 relevant vibration monitoring applications that we have developed for industrial monitoring in factories.

MEMS is the latest technology of microscopic devices, particularly those with moving parts. With the advancement in electronic chip design, industrial IOT, MEMS sensors are preferred over Piezoelectric Sensors.

Low cost (Eg..MEMS- 50$ , Piezoelectric- 1000$)
Higher Accuracy & Ultra-low noise
High Frequency (not as high as piezo, but more than enough for what we need)
Compatible with IoT platforms
Low Power (can work on battery)
Based on smart factory concept

In an earlier IOT blog post, we have detailed about the need to monitor vibration of equipment to reduce breakdowns and unscheduled maintenance. Here are some of the factors which determines accuracy in machine behaviour.

Sensitivity

Sensitivity is the most important parameter of an accelerometer which means show accurate is the sensor output . It is specified in mV/G. (Eg. 1 mV/G, 100 mV/G ).

Range / Vibration Amplitude

Range means the range of vibration amplitudes which the accelerometer is capable to measure and is expressed like +-2g.

Bandwidth

Range of frequencies which the sensor can capture. A motor working at 1500 rpm (normal) require a sensor with minimum 1500 rpm bandwidth to capture abnormal vibrations.

Number of Axis

In order to detect vibrations sensors should be deployed on a proper machine point mounted in X,Y, or Z axis directions. In the market, sensors to capture vibrations at only 1 axis or all 3 axis at same time are present.

Noise

In order to capture ultra low motions in machines, ultra noise sensors are used. Piezoelectric sensors are widely used in industry due to low noise but in second generation, MEMS sensors with lower noise magnitude compared to Piezo electrics is been recently developed and we have implemented these solutions in our industrial monitoring and anomaly detection products.

Sampling Frequency

This means how many records the sensor captures in one second and it’s expressed in Hz. For a 1500 rpm motor sampling frequency should be at least 50 Hz.

Mounting Options

It determines how to mount sensor to the target machine surface. 4 mounting methods include: Handheld or probe tips, Magnetic, Adhesive and Stud mount. Stud mount is used for permanent and other mounts for temporary installations.The various mounting methods affect the measurable frequency of the accelerometer. Our condition monitoring solutions for factories are a mix of magnetic and adhesive based.