A sensing node for high-temperature, dusty plant environments
A custom acquisition and processing node, from schematic to verified prototypes, measures vibration and temperature on equipment where off-the-shelf devices had failed, and computes indicators locally.
- Sector
- Energy and utilities
- Location
- Qatar
- Duration
- 12 months
- 85 °Ccontinuous ambient rating
- > 18 mobattery life at the agreed reporting rate
- 3design iterations to a production-ready board
The challenge
Commercial wireless sensors failed within months from heat and dust, and their fixed sampling could not capture the transients the reliability team cared about.
What we did
Requirements were set with the reliability engineers: measurement bandwidth, temperature range, ingress protection, battery life and the indicators needed on the device.
We designed the analogue front end, ADC and microcontroller board, the enclosure thermal path and the firmware for triggered high-rate capture, local feature extraction and low-power reporting.
Prototypes were characterised in the laboratory and then installed on three machines for a six-month field trial with reference instrumentation alongside.
The outcome
The node met its measurement and environmental requirements through the trial. Design files, firmware, test procedures and a bill of materials were handed to the client’s manufacturing partner.
A representative engagement. The figures are indicative of typical outcomes for this kind of work and are not drawn from a named client.
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