The Unbreakable Project is a working prototype of predictive maintenance, a branch of the Industry 4.0.
This kind of system, is applied to one or more cooling fans. Each fan is located on a set of shock absorbers, and has an accelerometer attached on it, to detect vibrations.
Accelerometers' data is processed by many Arduino microcontrollers, which send data to an edge, via BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy).
The edge must have a Bluetooth adapter, and manages accelerometers' data transmission via node-red. Data is then sent via MQTT to the central server, which, with machine learning algorithms is able to train itself, understand whether a fan is in good or bad conditions, and even calculate when that fan is going to break down. In addition, the central server provides a dashboard, in which it's possible to see graphs of the fans' vibrations.
It's important to encrypt data transmission between Arduino processors and edges, and between edges and the central server, to avoid sniffing and man-in-the-middle attacks.
Data encryption is not implemented in the project, but it's a critical point.
Compared to programmed maintenance:
- avoid worthless maintenances
- less downtime periods
Compared to on-breakdown maintenance:
- execute the maintenance when the payload of the system is minimal
- minimize damage
General benefits:
- money saving
- real time status of components
- prediction of the breakdown moment