Key Research Areas

Condition monitoring systems (CMS) catch machine malfunction before operation grinds to halt and have played no small part in the success of German mechanical and plant engineering over the last decade. In the project ECoMos (Energy Autarkic Condition Monitoring System), we are extending wireless sensor technology to include condition monitoring of entire manufacturing plants.

The project’s goal is developing tiny, cost-efficient sensor nodes, which form sensor networks with self-sufficient power supplies (autarkic) to communicate with each other wirelessly. The sensors measure and analyze fluctuations and temperatures. A wireless transmitter and receiver system is used to configure the sensor nodes, which send condition reports at regular intervals to a base state located up to 50 meters away. The new technology makes rewiring and the associated complications of wired transmission a thing of the past and moreover makes collecting and transmitting sensor data from even hard-to-access places a reality.

Power supply is an important consideration in designing of the sensor node hardware and industrial manufacturers are placing their bets on power transducers, rather than battery operated wireless technology. Here, thermal generators and vibration transducers are good options for harvesting energy from the application environment.

Together with the ECoMos consortium of research and industry, we have already successfully installed and tested the first wireless sensor nodes in a Hamburg paper processing factory.