Vibration-based Fault Detection System with IoT Capabilities for a Conveyor Machine

In the industry, the continuous operation of machines is required, making it difficult to stop and carry out preventive maintenance to check the status of the wear elements. However, the early detection of a faulty element allows avoiding further damage to the machine and the user. Thus, it is very important to have continuous and remote monitoring of the machine's status and the wear of its elements without stopping the process; to this aim, vibration analysis is one of the most effective techniques. In this paper, a vibration-based fault detection system with IoT capabilities applied to a vibrating conveyor is presented. The system processes the acceleration force measured in 6 points of the machine using two-axis wireless accelerometers and obtains the position-time date time to derive three machine parameters: stroke, direction and frequency; comparing these values to their nominal reference the system provides a visual interface to inform the operator both, in situ and remotely, the status of the machine. The system performance is validated through a physical conveyor prototype.