Condition Monitoring via CMS and Wireless PROFINET

Project

Machine tools play a central role in the production of parts for the automotive industry, with hundreds of machines of different age and manufacturers often being installed in one production hall. In addition to modern machines with already integrated sensor technology, there are also classic machines whose operating status is still monitored by electromechanical modules. In the course of Industrie 4.0, operators are now increasingly looking to retrofit those machines with intelligent sensor systems including data communication, thus creating the prerequisites for efficient condition monitoring. This requires - in addition to the retrofitting of sensors - an efficient system for the sensor data transport from the machine to a data processing and displaying system   without interfering with the actual machine control.

 A large car parts manufacturer in Portugal wanted to retrofit his several hundred machine tools –usually 12 per production line(Fig. 1) - accordingly. After a thorough market analysis, he commissioned the IIOT company IndustrialSYS, which had proposed a powerful wireless solution using the Schildknecht CMS (Condition Monitoring System) in conjunction with wireless PROFINET.

Challenges

The challenges of this project were the variety of machines - with or without sensors, with analog and/or digital signals, with different control systems - and the requirement to perform the CM retrofit in a short time and without significant impairment of the ongoing production.

All machines should be upgraded to provide the following four operating parameters:

Temperature insidethe switch cabinets, the cooling as well as the oil-hydraulic circuit temperature and the pressure of the hydraulic circuit. Further requirements were optimal bridging of machine distances for signal transmission, short installation times and the use of a powerful and established communication system suitable for easy integration into other, already existing applications. In addition, it should be possible to call up the values directly locally via dashboard.

Solution

These complex user requirements were solved by using wireless (Bluetooth) technology for data transmission and the specially configured Condition Monitoring System (Schildknecht DATAEAGLE) and wireless PROFINET as communication technology.

The data transport path from the machine sensors to the data display (dashboard, fig. 2) is realized as follows:

1. Sensors, which are already installed on the machines, are further used and their signals - if still wired - converted to wireless via the DATAEAGLE Xtreme IO module (Bluetooth Sensor Hub, fig. 3). 
2. Machines without sensors are retrofitted with the CISS sensor (Connected Industrial Sensor Solution) from Bosch, which is included in the above-mentioned CMS. This sensor is suitable to detect up to 8 variables, is easy to install and provides the measured values digitally and already via Bluetooth.
3. All sensor signals - now  available via Bluetooth -  are received by the  DATAEAGLE 2730 Gateway via its max. 8 Bluetooth parallel connections and converted on the output side to common communication technologies such as PROFIBUS, PROFINET, etc. for forwarding to e.g. an industrial PC or a visualization system or a cloud. In this project, wireless PROFINET was used together with a Siemens controller, which provides the data in the network and for visualization.

User benefits

The successfully solved application is exemplary for countless similar cases: To provide older machine tools with an "intelligence boost" through powerful condition monitoring and IOT-capabilities. 

Major user benefits are:

• Retrofitting on site with the least possible disruption to production.
• Use of proven technologies such as Bluetooth and PROFINET, the leading Industrial Ethernet communication technology.
• Availability of all necessary components in a complete Condition Monitoring system (DATAEAGLE CMS, fig. 4)

Schildknecht AG