Cutting the cost of monitoring industrial machines
01/08/2025
5G connectivity enables manufacturers to deploy a new streamlined Internet of Things (IoT) solution to detect critical rises in the temperature of equipment.
In a manufacturing or industrial plant, an abnormal build-up of heat is a strong indication that something is wrong. One way to detect excessively hot electrical connections or components is to use expensive hand-held infrared cameras to capture images (called thermograms) that show surface heat variations. Similarly, thermograms can also detect the heat created by excessive friction in mechanical systems. Ideally, these thermal systems would be connected to a monitoring system that can alert engineers of the need for maintenance before any damage is done to the equipment or production process. However, Internet of Things (IoT) wireless connectivity of thermal images is not commonplace because the permanent installation of thermographic cameras has been too expensive and complex for most production environments. “Excessive equipment costs, complicated telemetry environments and data size with its integration have all combined to block thermography from becoming commonplace, like accelerometers are to monitoring machine vibration,” explained Marek Steffanson, CEO and Founder of infrared solution provider Calumino, which is based in Australia.
At the same time, traditional switchgear and interlocked control gear, which are used to protect, control and isolate electrical equipment, are very difficult to monitor using thermal imaging cameras. “The only solution, up to now, has been the fitting of infrared inspection windows or grilles,” said David Manning-Ohren, Technical Manager for Eriks Smart Asset Management, Category 3
Thermographer, PCN infrared thermography examiner for the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing (BINDT) and committee member of the British Standards Institution (BSI) condition monitoring standards committee. “This had meant cutting into what may have been an enclosure designed to withstand an arc-flash incident, in which case the risk in doing the modification had to be balanced against the risk of not doing the survey. Arc-flash would most likely occur when energising circuits and hence the switchgear would be most exposed to an incident.”
To address these challenges, Calumino teamed up with Eriks, a specialised industrial service provider based in the Netherlands and operating in 15 countries. Having performed thermographic surveys for its customers since the mid-1980s, Eriks was looking for a cost-effective and scalable solution to enable continuous monitoring of industrial machinery.
“Following a presentation of Calumino’s product, Eriks instantly purchased one of the evaluation kits and validated the performance of the device along with what was required as a production device for deployment within an electrical enclosure,” recalled David. The two companies then joined forces to develop a safe, unobtrusive technology that can check all is well within an electrical enclosure without modifying its construction.
While Calumino had already developed small low-resolution industrial thermal sensors, Eriks helped it to make these products easy to mount and manoeuvre, easy to wire and easy to programme on site or off site. The new Calumino Industrial Monitoring Sensor has only four connections on a plug and socket.
It employs a 5 V power supply and a Modbus1output, while the nanotech-based sensor is only a small component. The whole enclosure measures 12 cm × 12 cm. “Because the device is so easy to mount, it does not compromise the mechanical strength of the electrical enclosure of the equipment it is monitoring,” explained David.
Despite its relative simplicity and small size, Calumino and Eriks say the new system does not compromise on performance. It is designed to enable industrial companies to monitor thermal behaviour, trends and accurate absolute temperatures and relative changes within switchboards. With the integration of 5G wireless technology, these systems can now transmit data efficiently, even in challenging environments, ensuring maintenance engineers are alerted to potential problems in real time. The integration of 5G connectivity has also unlocked the potential use of the data collected, allowing for advanced analytics and real-time monitoring to gain deeper insights and make more informed decisions. In manufacturing plants, even a small equipment failure can result in missed deadlines and strained customer relationships.
The new Calumino sensor is integrated with the Eriks online Smart Asset Management (SAM) platform and 5G modules. These modules enable the solution to use an industrial plant’s 5G network to transmit data from the thermographic system to the SAM platform, either as a continuous stream of small packets or via periodic transfers of full images.
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| (a) Calumino Thermal Sensor (CTS) thermal image; (b) visual reference; and (c) hand-held thermographic camera thermal image |
This integration ensures that the system can operate efficiently with low bandwidth and maintain excellent coverage in various environments.
On deploying the system, the maintenance engineers set an area or areas of interest to monitor. Inside the device, an embedded algorithm can detect anomalies early, taking into account any changes in load or ambient temperature, to eliminate false positives and negatives as practically as possible. Thermographic data from each area is streamed via the Modbus protocol to the SAM
platform.
This integrated solution, offering a seamless, true wireless data monitoring system for both legacy and modern industrial systems, has been deployed by multiple manufacturers. “Within the Eriks customer base, this has been well received by pharmaceutical, food and beverage, petrochemical, utilities and building product manufacturers,” said David.
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| Installation 1: 240/24 V transformer, top of right cabinet. Visual reference. Note: cabinet shown as open |
“With less than 1000 pixels, the device could easily be dismissed as too low resolution when compared even to a low-end thermographic camera, but when it can be supplied, fitted, commissioned and scaled for the same price as a thermal imaging window, and with our sensors having industry-leading sensitivity and accuracy, then you need to change that mindset,” said Marek.
“Will this device detect a defect? Yes. Will it diagnose the exact cause? Potentially. Is it reasonable and practicable to deploy this device to monitor captive electrical components? Definitely.”
“For Eriks, the Calumino Industrial Monitoring Sensor is a fantastic addition to our suite of smart asset management solutions,” concluded David. “It complements our periodic thermographic surveys, giving our customers extra peace of mind on their captive or remote applications.”
1Modbus is a widely deployed data communication protocol that allows devices to communicate with each other using a client/server model.
