ACCURATE VIBRATION AND SPEED MEASUREMENT ON ROTATING SHAFTS USING MEMS AND IoT SINGLE WIRELESS TRIAXLE SENSOR

摘要

Industrial equipment, robotics and gear boxes that incorporate rotating shafts often need to monitor rotational vibration and shaft speed, as part of broader condition-based maintenance (CBM) systems. Existing sensor implementations on rotating shafts, including pinion and planetary gears, have been limited by cabling, slip-ring approaches, and multiple sensors to obtain monitoring information. A practical solution is a self-contained, compact, single triaxle sensor design based on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology and an internet of things (IoT) wireless communications. Ridgetop Group has designed and developed such a triaxle MEMS sensor: RotoSense™. RotoSense is capable of measuring shaft speeds of up to 5500 RPM, while streaming accurate rotational vibration and shaft speed measurement data on a continuous basis. Each sensor possesses its own IP address, which supports remote monitoring over the internet. Applications can range from industrial equipment to transportation systems. This paper describes the MEMS sensor for monitoring of two example applications: (1) a helicopter gearbox, and (2) conditioning monitoring of a railroad track.