Getting started with IIoT sensor deployment

Wed, Dec 11 2024

Summary

When connecting legacy or new assets for IoT use cases, you are faced with a variety of options: which sensors and gateways to use, wired vs. wireless networking, battery life for sensors and gateways, which communication protocols to use, how to collect data, what functionality needs to reside at the edge (analytics, storage), device management - the choices are staggering. This session will discuss best practices for this critical first step in IoT deployments.

KEY TAKEAWAY 1: Understand the decision criteria for sensor selection as you develop your Industrial IoT strategy

KEY TAKEAWAY 2: Learn about battery life, communication protocols, and edge storage in industrial IoT use cases

KEY TAKEAWAY 3: Deepen your knowledge of Edge analytics during data collection

The following is a summary of the Hands-on Lab "IIoT Sensor Deployment - What and How" at PI World 2018 in San Francisco, CA.

All products, names, trademarks and registered trademarks are property of the respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this document are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, trademarks, and brands does not imply endorsement.

The hands-on lab covers several use cases to illustrate the various options:

Non-invasive sensor measurements – voltage, amps, pressure, process fluid temperature, process liquid flow, liquid level, vibration, thermography (IR temperature) etc.
Data flow via wireless communication - RF mesh network, WiFi, cellular etc.
Data payloads via MQTT (Sparkplug B), Modbus IP, PI UFL http, OPC UA, Ethernet IP, HART-IP etc.

All examples use currently shipping or soon to be released PI System software.

The lab does not require any coding or developer related skills.

Use Case 1: Energy usage – Amps (current transformer) – Advantech

In this Exercise, you collect current (amperage) usage readings; these measurements are used to track energy consumption, unbalanced three phase loads etc.

Energy monitoring starer kit: http://www.advantech.com/products/a0af34d2-a0dd-42d9-b323-82e65581bf8f/bb-wsk-nrg-2/mod_de06dc19-f51a-441f-b23d-604777fb…

http://advantech-bb.com/product-technology/iot-and-network-edge-platforms/smartswarm-341/

Edge wireless sensor (5 year battery) uses RF mesh network to transmit to an IoT Gateway (includes support for cellular) which publishes to MQTT broker; and then is written to PI using PI Connector for MQTT (Sparkplug B)

The Smart Swarm box includes Node-RED

Use Case 2: Condition monitoring – Motor Temperature (thermal camera) – Fluke

In this Exercise, you collect temperature readings using a thermal camera.

For more information on thermography use cases, see http://www.maintworld.com/Applications/IR-Thermography-in-Maintenance

http://en-us.fluke.com/products/infrared-cameras/fluke-ti400-infrared-camera.html

Handheld thermal camera uses ad hoc WiFi to connect to a smart phone, then via cellular to transmit to Fluke Connect cloud, and then the temperature readings (no thermal images) are written to PI using PI Connector for UFL (https)

Use Case 3: Condition monitoring – Vibration - National Instruments and Allied Reliability

In this Exercise, you collect and compare vibration readings for a balanced/unbalanced motor. Condition monitoring via vibration accelerometers is widely used for CbM (condition based maintenance) and fault diagnostics.

http://www.ni.com/insightcm/http://www.ni.com/insightcm/

Interfacing with the OSIsoft PI System Software - InsightCM 3.7 Manual - National Instruments

https://alliedreliability.com/

http://www.ni.com/en-us/support/model.crio-9037.html

Vibration accelerometer (continuous ) with high sampling rate (20 kHz) is edge-processed ( including FFT - Fast Fourier Transform) to extract key features (RMS, peak, crest etc. including speficified spectral data - 1x, 2x, 20x, 47x etc.) and sent to NI InsightCM; then it is written to PI via PI Connector for OPC-UA

Reference installation: Duke Energy http://landing.ni.com/dukeenergyiiot