Towards machine diagnostics on chip

Failures of critical factory equipment are one of the main reasons for production stoppages and a regular maintenance schedule is required to ensure continuous operation of production line. However, regular maintenance can be both costly and inefficient. Vibrations are present in all machinery with moving parts and it had always been regarded as an indicator of the health and condition of rotating machinery. With advances in technology, what used to be a mechanic's hunch can now be measured and with reasonable accuracy. This paper present a proof-of-concept implementation of machine diagnostic on chip using an intelligent wireless sensor node, capable of processing and analyzing vibration signals from Micro-electromechanical (MEMS) sensors. Special design considerations were also made to allow the wireless sensor node to be reconfigurable and modular at both the hardware and software level. A custom fixed-point library was implemented to tackle accuracy issues in dealing with small numbers without the use of floating point numbers in resource scarce platforms.