Condition monitoring and predictive maintenance

A broken elevator when time is scarce, a non-reactive air conditioning unit in the middle of summer – failure of devices disrupting building operations are one of the main issues bothering both, tenants and building operators. Being able to monitor the condition of these devices and predict these interruptions before they even occur is a major leap in cost efficiency and convenience for Smart Buildings. In order to realize these benefits, condition monitoring and predictive maintenance have to be implemented for the critical infrastructure elements of buildings.
Condition monitoring facilitates insights into the actual state of devices in buildings by making use of sensors. Hence, it is providing solid data fundament for further analysis.

Based on this data fundament, predictive maintenance enables a data-driven approach to predict and prevent device failures based on pattern recognition and intelligent software models. To collect the necessary data and enable monitoring the condition of devices in a building, smart XENSIV™ sensors help to record the most crucial parameters of a device’s status.

The benefits of condition monitoring and predictive maintenance come into play when sensors, microcontrollers, and hardware security are combined, e.g. for HVAC units. HVAC units are a decisive part of a building’s critical infrastructure.  In HVAC units, fans, motors, and compressors are most susceptible to fail. Sensors measuring various parameters and data points such as air flow, current consumption, sound, and vibration help to understand whether the unit operates smoothly or failures are likely to occur soon.

Sensors monitor the most critical parameters such as: 

• Air flow measurement at the compressor based on the XENSIV™ DPS368 barometric pressure sensor
• Current measurement at the fan and compressor based on the XENSIV™ TLI4970 current sensor
• Position sensing of the motor with XENSIV™ TLV493D-A1B6 3D magnetic sensor
• Sound anomaly detection in the unit with the XENSIV™ IM69D130 MEMS microphone
• Vibration measurement with the XENSIV™ 24 GHz radar sensor

Once data is gathered on device level, it needs to be analyzed either at the edge directly or transferred to a central system like a building management system or the cloud for further analysis. The XMC4800 microcontroller provides the required processing functionality in combination with connectivity like Ethernet or EtherCAT® and helps to enable integration into existing ecosystems such as Amazon FreeRTOS. In order to secure data transfer and processing, embedded hardware security is crucial to enable end-to-end data security and integrity.