Predictive maintenance with cloud-connected sensor kit

New Products | February 23, 2021

By Nick Flaherty

Infineon Technologies has launched a cloud-connected sensor kit that supports predictive maintenance in smart buildings.

The XENSIV Predictive Maintenance Evaluation Kit includes sensors, microcontroller and embedded security with embedded software as well as cloud templates. This simplifies evaluation of sensor-based condition monitoring and predictive maintenance in smart buildings. It is targetted heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment as well as motors, fans, drives, compressors and refrigeration.

According to IHS Markit, the overall Smart Building market will be worth $17.5bn in 2022, and predictive maintenance techniques are one of the key features of smart buildings. This can lead to 70 percent fewer breakdowns and 25 percent fewer maintenance costs, while well-maintained equipment can extend its lifetime by 20 percent. Building owners and facility managers want predictive maintenance functions in equipment since the failure of equipment can result in severe disruption of a building’s operations.

The XENSIV Predictive Maintenance Evaluation Kit is an extension for the XMC4700 XMC Relax Kit. It can be equipped with XENSIV sensor satellite boards with a broad range of sensors for data collection and condition monitoring. These include airflow measurement at the compressor based on the XENSIV DPS368 barometric pressure sensor as well as current measurement at the fan and compressor based on the XENSIV TLI4971 current sensor. Position sensing of a motor is possible with the XENSIV TLI493D-W2BW 3D magnetic sensor while sound anomaly detection in the unit is handled by the XENSIV IM69D130 MEMS microphone and linear movement vibration measurement with XENSIV TLE4997E Linear Hall sensor. The opening and closing of the lid is detected by the XENSIV TLE4964-3M Hall sensor.

Data processing is handled with the XMC4700 ARM Cortex-M4 industrial microcontroller with the connection secured and authenticated with the OPTIGA Trust M embedded security solution that also supports multi-account registration.

The software supports the FreeRTOS kernel and the AWS cloud integration is completed by full AWS CloudFormation templates and a software application stack. A Graphic User Interface (GUI) and basic anomaly detection are also included. For connectivity Wi-Fi and Ethernet are integrated on-board, as well as a mikroBUS ClickBoard interface for extended connectivity.

“Together with AWS and Infineon we assembled an end-to-end HVACR predictive maintenance evaluation kit and anomaly detection solution that enables building operators to evaluate features to proactively respond to issues before they become costly failures,” said Gennadiy Borisov, President and Co-CEO of Klika Tech. “There is now a complete evaluation solution to increase efficiency and reduce system downtime – all in a scalable evaluation platform that can be deployed quickly.”

“With the rise of Smart Buildings, features such as condition monitoring and predictive maintenance become increasingly important to leverage the full potential of intelligent buildings,” said Robert Junker, Head of Emerging Applications at Infineon. “This evaluation kit allows customers to easily evaluate sensor-based condition monitoring and predictive maintenance features in their HVAC systems. Together with our partners, we can now provide them full end-to-end support along their predictive maintenance journey.”

The XENSIV Predictive Maintenance Evaluation Kit will be available for selected customers at Infineon’s virtual Embedded Solutions Conference 2021. It can be ordered via distributors later in the first half of 2021.

www.infineon.com/predictivemaintenance