Autonomous Distributed Plant Monitoring Network

The increased availability of miniature low-cost embedded sensing and processing elements and standardized communications protocols has made distributed monitoring within industrial plants more accessible and more useful. Similarly, dynamic health monitoring and predictive system behavior models have brought the promise of moving away from scheduled based maintenance to condition-based maintenance, requiring attention only when it is needed. Schedule-based inspection and maintenance of rotating equipment is costly and labor intensive, and still may not be completely effective for eliminating unscheduled equipment outages. There is a significant need to be able to retrofit existing equipment or instrument new equipment to track conditions within industrial facilities for coordinating operations, logistics, and maintenance processes. BENEFIT: To increase rotating machine service life and reliability, and to reduce maintenance costs and equipment outages, Luna Innovations Incorporated proposes to develop an autonomous distributed plant monitoring system made up of wireless sensor nodes that harvest energy, and an intuitive management interface for condition-based monitoring of rotating machinery. Sensors embedded within these machines can monitor operation status indicators, and physical and environmental parameters continuously and relay this information to a central user network. In addition, wireless sensor node technology has progressed to the point where such low power is required for their operation, that power harvested from ambient vibrations of rotating machines being monitored are sufficient to provide virtually infinite service life.