Sushi sensor to monitor plant equipment vibration and surface temperature.
To monitor plant equipment vibration and surface temperature, Yokogawa has offered the Sushi sensor to customers in Japan. Now the OpreX Brand wireless solution is available for the industrial IoT in other parts of the world.
Yokogawa will start shipping the Sushi sensor to Europe next month. The compact wireless device has integrated sensing and communications to monitor plant equipment vibration and surface temperature. It enables the online monitoring of equipment operating conditions, which helps to improve equipment maintenance and prevent failures by detecting signs of abnormalities at an early stage.
To improve productivity and efficiency of plant maintenance operations, equipment data has to be collected. This is driving demand for wireless sensors that are easier and cheaper to install than conventional wired devices. To detect signs of equipment abnormalities at an early stage and prevent unexpected equipment failures, it is essential to frequently measure the vibration and surface temperature of plant equipment such as compressors, pumps, and motors, and to enable the monitoring of such data online.
Although crucial equipment may already be continuously monitored by using wired sensors, this may be difficult with many other types of equipment due to the high initial cost and the challenges of wiring devices in difficult to access locations, explains Yokogawa. Such equipment must be inspected during operator rounds or periodic inspections leading to an increasing need for wireless vibration and temperature sensors that can be installed easily and at a low cost.
The Sushi sensor is compact and wireless. It complies with the LoRaWAN communication standard for long-distance communications, and thus needs no repeaters. It is also battery-powered, eliminating the need for an external power supply. It can be mounted easily on all kinds of plant equipment and also supports near-field radio communication (NFC), which allows sensor setting and sensor condition monitoring from a smartphone via a dedicated app. This technology is suitable for short-range communications, over a distance of several centimetres for quick data exchange.
Yokogawa’s Sushi sensor is environmentally robust and is well suited for installation in harsh plant locations as well as indoors.
Data collected by the Sushi sensor can be monitored either from an on-premise server or a cloud server via a LoRaWAN gateway. From the on-premise server or any device in a remote location that can access the cloud server, operators and maintenance staff can monitor the vibration and surface temperature of equipment throughout a plant.
Data is collected and transmitted to an on-premise or cloud server via a LoRaWAN gateway.
