Development of signal transmission and reduction modules for status monitoring and prediction of machine tools

Machine tools such as computer numerical control milling machines play key roles in modern manufacturing industry. The quality of machined products are largely depended on the status of machines in various aspects. As a result, appropriate condition monitoring would be essential for both quality control and the safety and life assessment of machine tools especially for the current Industry 4.0 era. In this work, the effort for developing a low cost customized wireless data transmission module and the associated data processing for extracting signatures and tendencies in both time and frequency domains for status monitoring and longevity evaluation are presented. The system is realized via Arduino, Bluetooth, and LabView. Finally, the developed system is used on a five-axis CNC miller for examining the feasibility of the developed system by monitoring the operating status of the machine. In the future, with more data collected, it is expected that more sophisticated models would be developed for better describing and predicting the machine status for enhancing the manufacturing reliability.