Rotating machinery is a vital part of virtually every manufacturing process. Motors, gearboxes, pumps, compressors, etc., are relied upon to operate efficiently in order to maintain a steady stream of production at maximum throughput. It's this dependency upon the machinery used in critical operations that has prompted the evolution of machinery health monitoring. The lifespan of every piece of machinery is limited by the speed at which it is operating, the load to which it is subjected, the quality of its components, assembly and installation, the environment in which it's placed and the level at which it's maintained. While all of these factors are extremely important, it's the attention that's placed upon the latter that will dictate how efficiently the machinery performs. The incorporation of intelligent maintenance practices will predict impending failure of critical machinery components, like bearings, and prevent costly downtime and excessive overhead due to inventory and costly capital expenditures. Performing maintenance on a piece of machinery relative to its actual condition as opposed to how many hours it has been in service is referred to as Condition-Based Maintenance or CBM. This practice, which requires accurate machinery health monitoring techniques, allows machines to operate to their maximum useful life without being subjected to premature component replacement or unplanned downtime.

With the introduction of The Intelligent Component Health Monitor (ICHM®), Oceana Sensor offers integrated, networkable, wireless, smart sensing systems for Machinery Health Monitoring. ICHM® utilizes Bluetooth® and WiFi® technology for wireless data transmission and will support development of proprietary algorithms and commercial platforms. The ICHM® can monitor up to 2 channels of dynamic signals such as vibration, pressure, force and acoustics using state-of-the-art 24-bit ADC as well as 4 channels of lower bandwidth data such as temperature, speed, and position. The on-board Digital Signal Processor enables the measurement of complex signals and execution of complex algorithms near real-time. Functions such as Fourier analysis, digital filtering, band level comparisons and advanced mathematical calculations can be executed locally. Data from several ICHM® nodes can be collected and analyzed by the System Health Monitor (SHM®) and ultimately linked to the Internet for display in remote locations.