An evaluation kit from German electronics company Infineon Technologies provides quick and easy condition monitoring in smart buildings to enable predictive maintenance.

The Xensiv kit was co-developed with IoT service provider Klika Tech and is powered by Amazon Web Services. It includes hardware in the form of sensors, microcontroller and embedded security, as well as software and AWS CloudFormation templates. These form a starting point for quick and easy evaluation of sensor-based condition monitoring and predictive maintenance.

Target applications include HVAC equipment as well as motors, fans, drives, compressors, refrigeration and other components of smart buildings.

“Together with AWS and Infineon we assembled an end-to-end HVAC predictive maintenance evaluation kit and anomaly detection that enables building operators to evaluate features to proactively respond to issues before they become costly failures,” said Gennadiy Borisov, co-CEO of Florida-based Klika Tech. “There is now complete evaluation to increase efficiency and reduce system downtime, all in a scalable evaluation platform that can be deployed quickly.”

The kit is an extension for the XMC4700 XMC Relax kit. It can be equipped with Xensiv sensor satellite boards with a broad range of sensors for data collection and condition monitoring such as:

• Airflow measurement at the compressor based on the DPS368 barometric pressure sensor;
• Current measurement at the fan and compressor based on the TLI4971 current sensor;
• Position sensing of the motor with TLI493D-W2BW 3D magnetic sensor;
• Sound anomaly detection in the unit with the IM69D130 MEMS microphone;
• Linear movement vibration measurement with TLE4997E linear Hall sensor;
• Opened and closed lid detection with TLE4964-3M Hall sensor;
• Speed and direction measurement with TLI4966G double Hall sensor;
• Data processing with XMC4700 industrial microcontroller powered by Arm Cortex-M4; and
• Secured connection and authentication as well as multi-account registration with Optiga Trust M embedded security.

“With the rise of smart buildings, features such as condition monitoring and predictive maintenance become increasingly important to leverage the full potential of intelligent buildings,” said Robert Junker, head of emerging applications at Infineon. “This evaluation kit allows customers to easily evaluate sensor-based condition monitoring and predictive maintenance features in their HVAC systems. Together with our partners, we can now provide them full end-to-end support along their predictive maintenance journey.”

The software provided supports the FreeRTOS kernel. AWS cloud integration is completed by full AWS CloudFormation templates and a software application stack. A GUI and basic anomaly detection are also included. For connectivity, wifi and Ethernet are integrated on-board, as well as a MikroBus ClickBoard interface for extended connectivity. Multi-account registration is supported with Optiga Trust M embedded security.

According to IHS Markit, the overall smart building market will be worth $17.5bn in 2022. Coming from smart factories, predictive maintenance techniques are one of the key features of smart buildings. Predictive maintenance can lead to 70 per cent fewer breakdowns and 25 per cent fewer maintenance costs, while well-maintained equipment can extend its lifetime by 20 per cent. Especially, HVAC end-users such as building owners and facility managers request predictive maintenance functionality in their equipment since the failure of equipment can result in severe disruption of a building’s operations.