Structural Integration of Smart Sensors for the Industrial Internet of Things

Condition monitoring of machine components is an important prerequisite for the implementation of predictive maintenance and other IIoT applications in mechanical engineering. The closer a sensor system can be installed to the location and metric to be measured, the more accurate, less noisy and with lower latency the results will be. Methods and technologies for structural integration are core competences for this purpose. This work briefly summarizes challenges and tools for the structural integration of smart sensor systems. Furthermore, the state of the art of selected commercial products is presented. In this paper the focus is on an IIoT toolbox and its application in the development of a smart ball screw. The proposed sensor system can be easily installed as a retrofit kit in new double-nut ball screws as well as in revised ones.