Sensors are not as talked about as some other Internet of Things technologies, despite their critical role within the Industry 4.0 community at large. Sensors are technologies in fluid power that read, interpret, and transmit data based on one or more criteria important to observe: pressure, temperature, flow, contamination, water saturation, and vibration, to name a few.
The Internet of Things describes technologies that are connected through wires, Bluetooth, or wireless routers to the same internet we use to scroll through social media or perform our daily banking. Of course, your particle counter rarely logs on to your local internet service provider directly. Rather, it transmits data to a hub or router in your facility, which then directs the data to cloud servers using typical internet protocols.
Smart sensors may begin their digital information transmission journeys at the “edge,” while running on batteries or low power, which requires a gateway to transmit further than Bluetooth range. A hub or router must be located near these types of compact sensors, which send their signals using interestingly named technologies like Zigbee and Thread — two low-power technologies similar to Bluetooth. Long-range technologies exist but still require a hub at some point to broadcast to the internet. LoRaWAN can operate across miles of open space but still requires a router to make the connection.
It’s easy to imagine your smart home technologies making a connection between industrial IoT-ready sensors. Just as your smartwatch, thermostat, or outdoor lighting control system are equipped with short-range wireless technologies, sensor connections work through technologies similar to those used by Apple HomePod or Amazon Echo (or even your smart phone, which makes a great hub).
There are no limits to the IoT sensors available to offer expansive data in real time, which allows you to move away from reactive production and maintenance practices into the world of predictive operational telemetry. To best elucidate the benefits of IoT-ready sensors, I’ll use a couple of examples you should all generally be familiar with.
Because it’s generally accepted that contamination is the number one cause of hydraulic failure, it follows that advanced knowledge of a rapid rise in contamination provides maintenance personnel with failure-prevention superpowers. When your power unit is equipped with real-time contamination sensors programmed to send push notifications when your target ISO 4406 cleanliness code is exceeded, you can act quickly to investigate the source of contamination before catastrophic component failure and further damage occur.
Pneumatic systems benefit from IoT-ready sensors that can help high-paced automation plants run at higher speeds with fewer periods of unexpected downtime. A smart air-efficiency module can be installed alongside your FRL to measure air consumption, pressure drop, moisture, and downstream pressure. The sensor can trigger a warning when unexpected air usage rises, for example, sending a notification that leakage is occurring somewhere within that subcircuit.
If you can sense it, you can transmit it over the airwaves. What used to be six figures’ worth of hard-wired technology running miles of physical wires throughout your plant is now available at commodity-level pricing and online availability, with everyone able to access the data through a PC, laptop, or smart device. Like it or not, humans no longer exclusively enjoy access to the internet, as we now share that access with “things.”
Filed Under: Components, Engineering Basics, Sensors, Sensors & Gauges
