Monitoring and Diagnosis in Industrial Systems Using Wireless Sensor Networks

Condition monitoring and diagnosis of industrial systems avoids unexpected failures and greatly improves system reliability and maintainability. Advances in wireless communication, micro-electronics, digital electronics and highly integrated electronics in addition to the increasingly need for more efficient controlled electric systems, makes the development of monitoring and supervisory control tools object of study of many researchers. This paper proposes a digital system for energy usage evaluation, condition monitoring, diagnosis and supervisory control for electric systems applying wireless sensor networks (WSNs) connected to a wired infrastructure. The system is based on two hardware topologies responsible for the signal acquisition, processing and transmission: Intelligent Sensors Modules (ISMs) and Remote Data Acquisition Units (RDAUs). The gateway function of the wired network is carried out by Remote Servers (RSs) based on the AMD-Soekris NET4521 architecture, responsible for receiving the data collected and transmitting it to the Supervisory Controller (SCs) based on a PC Pentium IV architecture. The basic characteristics of the presented system are: (a) easy implementation, (b) low cost implementation, (c) easy implementation of redundant routines (security), and (d) portability/versatility.