Sequential state logic for pneumatic valve monitoring using piezo film sensors

This paper presents an approach to monitor actuation events of pneumatic valves using piezo film sensors. These sensors are very low-cost, flexible, wide-band, and are ideally suited to acquire acoustic signals non-intrusively from the valve. Event-specific signal signatures based on the envelope of the sensor signals are used to determine the behavior of the valves under operation. A sequential state logic is developed to detect the signatures for normal valve events. All design considerations are derived from experimental data obtained from a laboratory testbed. The performance results, including analysis of signals at various stages of the algorithm are presented using MATLAB.