Development of low-cost non-contact structural health monitoring system for rotating machinery

Condition monitoring systems are increasingly being employed in industrial applications to improve the availability of equipment to increase the overall equipment efficiency. Condition monitoring of gearboxes, a key element of rotating machines, ensures to continuously reduce and eliminate costs, unscheduled downtime and unexpected breakdowns. This study demonstrates a low-cost microcontroller-based non-contact data acquisition system for condition monitoring of rotating machinery. Experimental validation of the proposed system was carried out by performing examination tests on a gearbox test rig. A user-friendly graphical user interface was also developed which facilitates users to perform signal processing in both real-time and offline mode. The proposed system can perform most of the functions available in complex, stand-alone vibration analysers. The use of a general-purpose PC and standard programing language makes the system simple, economical and adaptable to a variety of problems. The tests show the developed system can perform properly as proposed.