Australian firm GreaseBoss has launched a stream meter designed to make sure acceptable equipment and gear upkeep in manufacturing, mining, and utility functions. The ‘GreaseBoss Endpoint’ sensor is positioned according to grease factors on equipment to watch the stream of industrial lubricant. This helps firms remotely monitor their gear, guaranteeing grease is being utilized evenly and figuring out any auto-lubricator reservoirs that require refilling. Enough lubrication is essential for these functions, as elevated friction can enhance the quantity of required upkeep and shorten the lifetime of kit. Unplanned downtime of kit could be costly, making predictive upkeep extremely useful.
Edge processing advantages
“The GreaseBoss system focuses on empowering small groups to remotely handle the greasing of large fleets of equipment amongst different duties of their each day workflow,” mentioned Peter Condoleon, CTO and co-founder of GreaseBoss.
GreaseBoss Endpoint integrates Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52833 SoC for knowledge assortment and sensor interface administration, earlier than relaying key metrics to a GreaseBoss gateway utilizing its Bluetooth low vitality (LE) connectivity. The nRF52833 SoC’s 64 MHz, 32-bit Arm Cortex M4 processor with floating level unit (FPU) employs edge processing to pick and ship solely the related info, avoiding pointless knowledge transmission and conserving energy.
From the gateway, the important thing knowledge is relayed to the cloud, from the place it may be accessed and analysed by customers. Each automated and on-demand reviews can be found from the ‘GreaseBoss Cloud’ internet platform, permitting firms to verify whether or not they’re assembly their pre-set lubrication necessities and obtain alerts if any areas of non-compliance are detected. Customers may also configure the plant construction arrange from the online platform.
This method is constructed utilizing Nordic answer accomplice Memfault’s IoT reliability platform for embedded observability, distant debugging, and over-the-air (OTA) fleet administration. Memfault supplies capabilities equivalent to metric, reboot, and hint reporting together with efficiency benchmarking to make sure the reliability of the GreaseBoss Endpoint sensors.
By leveraging Memfault, GreaseBoss Endpoint reduces the necessity for pointless on-site visits and {hardware} returns to debug points. It additionally helps customers enhance the uptime and reliability of their property. With Memfault additionally used on its units in growth, GreaseBoss performs high quality evaluation and ensures every machine meets the required requirements earlier than transport.
Lowered energy consumption
“To make GreaseBoss doable, our sensors wanted to have the longest doable life whereas in harsh industrial environments with excessive temperatures and many RF obstacles,” mentioned Condoleon. “The nRF52833 SoC hits the candy spot with its ultra-low energy consumption, prolonged working temperature vary from -40 to 105˚C and max transmit energy of +8 dBm. The extensive enter voltage vary additionally helped simplify the design and take away pointless elements from the invoice of supplies (BOM) by powering the chip instantly off the replaceable coin cell battery.”
As a result of giant variety of sensors required, and their usually hazardous or hard-to-reach placement, reaching an extended battery life was key to this software. The GreaseBoss Endpoint achieved this, partly because of the energy-efficient nature of the nRF52833 SoC and the efficiency monitoring capabilities of Memfault. GreaseBoss additionally used the Nordic Energy Profiler Equipment II (PPK2) to run numerous energy consumption eventualities to make sure that the units can constantly operate for a number of years.
“The good group, help, and growth instruments had been key drivers in selecting a Nordic answer,” continued Condoleon. “We used the nRF Join SDK to construct our software totally in-house – in actual fact, we had been in a position to make use of the SDK to prototype elements of our software in a matter of days and develop a field-ready beta [solution] in weeks. The abundance of pattern code made it simple to get began, and we discovered the documentation simple to navigate and useful as we began to optimise for energy and efficiency.”