Energy Efficient Machine Condition Monitoring Using Wireless Sensor Networks

An Industrial Wireless Sensor Network system is described for condition monitoring of electric machines. On-sensor data processing is used to reduce the amount of information that needs to be transmitted, thus saving communications energy. Based on a condition monitoring interval of 3 seconds, and using 2 AAA batteries for power, the system lifetime is measured for four different operating modes. For raw data transmission to the coordinator, the system lifetime is 106 hours. If feature extraction is done on the sensor node, this is extended to 152 hours. If fault diagnosis is done on the node, the lifetime is 153 hours. If fault diagnosis is conducted every 3 seconds but results are only sent under fault conditions, or once per hour as a health check, then lifetime is dramatically increased to 1764 hours.