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Industrial IoT solution for UPS Battery monitoring System & Predictive Maintenance

Customer:

One of the world’s most respected and renowned suppliers of electric and automation systems for Industrial Plants. With a strong focus on R&D and quality, over the years our customer has earned the reputation of being a trusted Tier-I supplier of high-quality electric motors and drivers, power electronics equipment, and Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS).

Business Challenge:

  • During the latest UPS field deployment tests, a critical issue related to timely maintenance was observed by the customer.
  • The customer had sourced the Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries from a third-party supplier. The existing UPS network could not effectively predict the rate of drainage of the battery charge.
  • This meant that, as an industrial automation supplier, our customer could not deliver the advantages of predictive maintenance (no downtime and lower cost of ownership) to its clients.
  • Also, due to the absence of an IoT platform solution for battery monitoring and management, any battery failure would have a direct impact on the performance and longevity of the UPS network.
  • The customer wanted to minimize this weakness: monitoring the rate of drain of battery charge.
  • They approached our IoT software development team for an Industrial automation solution.

Embitel Solution:

  • Design and development of an IoT solution using industrial grade network of sensors for data collection and battery monitoring.
  • Design and development of a data aggregator and storage system, wherein data can be stored either locally on the device or on an external server.
  • Industrial IoT (IIoT) sensors are connected to the local monitoring unit over a wireless LAN connection to minimize the cabling cost. A backup Ethernet connection has also been designed.
    IoT SOlution
  • These IoT sensor modules collect the voltage and temperature information from the installed batteries of the UPS.
  • The collected data is packaged and forwarded to the local monitoring unit for decision making. To monitor the rate of battery discharge and ensure predictive maintenance, the system has been designed to calculate the string current.
  • Thus implementing Ohm’s Law as part of the algorithm, the battery monitoring and data analytics software is able to isolate the weakening batteries and notify the local administrator to take appropriate action for predictive maintenance.

Embitel Impact:

  • Our client now has the ability to ensure:
    • Zero system downtime due to Predictive Maintenance (PdM) of the in-service UPS.
    • Reduction in overall cost of ownership for the clients.
  • The designed industrial IoT and automation solution also enabled our customer to address the load balance challenges during the charge and discharge cycles.

Tools and Technologies:

  • OrCAD design tools for schematic development, HyperLynx – Signal Integrity, Power Integrity, and Thermal Analysis.
  • Texas Instrument (TI) Industrial Microcontroller.
  • Texas Instruments (TI) FreeRTOS for embedded software development.
  • Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio for the development of the local master units and the sensor module units.
  • QT framework for HMI design of the PC-Application and ATS.
  • TCP/IP server for the remote PC configuration.
  • ModBus slave stack for interface with Building Management Software.

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