2008 International Workshop on Education Technology and Training & 2008 International Workshop on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Fault detection system based on embedded platform
Wang Fen, Xu Gang, Li Li
College of Mechatronics & Control Engineering,
Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China, 518060
Email: wangfentangchong@yahoo.com.cn
Abstract—This paper introduced a gear-box fault detection
system that based on PC/104 embeded platform. Gear-box is
almost as important as engine in a vehicle, so it is necessary
to make sure that it is not out of order when driving. By
collecting the vibrant signal from the gear, axes and bearing
in gear-box, then processing and analysis the data, we can
get acquirement of the working condition of the gear-box.
And we can store the information in PC/104 embeded
module for a future analysis or send the data to control
center or upper PC by network or serial port, then achieving
remote monitoring in real-time. This system can help safely
driving, and it can reduce the risk of accident that caused by
the fault of gear-box.
Keywords- gear-box; vibrant; fault detection; embeded
system
I. INTRODUCTION
With the fast development of the auto industry, people
have enhanced their requirement about the performance
and functions of a vehicle. As an important component of
the transmission part, the gear-box always works in the
condition of high speed and heavy load[1], and it is more
likely out of order. So to build up detection system which
can monitor the condition of the gear-box, and send out the
information in real-time is in need.
The gear, bearing and axes are the main components in
a gear-box, when they go wrong, their vibrant energy
distribution will change[2], so analyze the vibrant signal
can detect the fault of the gear box., and only to collect the
accurate signal can analyze and diagnose the fault correctly.
PC/104 embedded module with high speed and high
precise can collect plenty of vibration signal, by processing
and analysis the data we can diagnose the fault of the gear-
box, or we can transmit the information to the controller
for real-time monitoring, also we can store the information
in the memory of the embedded module for future analysis.
II. ARCHITECTURE DESCRIPTION
We use PC104 embedded module as the main
controller to built up the fault detection system, the
[3]
function of the system is vibrant signal collection , data
processing and data communication. Data collection and
control system is made of ADT200 combined with PC104
embedded module by PC104 bus.
Compared with SCM (Single Chip Microcomputer),
PC (Personal Computer) and DSP (Digital Signal
Processing), embedded system is the best choice to use in
978-0-7695-3563-0/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ETTandGRS.2008.370
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SURATHKAL. Downloaded on July 26,2010 at 16:07:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Xiang Yunrong
Environment Protection Monitoring Center of
Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China, 510045
E-mail: xyr@gdemc.gov.cn
this fault detection system. Reasons are given as
follows[3,4]:
Though SCM has many merits, such as high
integration level, small in size, low power consumption
and low price, and compared with general microcomputer,
it is difficult to design circuits of some peripheral
equipments, and its program design is also not easy. In
addition, the data handling capacity of SCM is very limited
and can not meet the need of the application of huge data
and high-speed digital signal processing. So it is not fit for
a detection system which demands high-capacity.
The superiority of DSP is its ability of high-speed
digital signal processing, its speed has reached 200M,
which SCM and general microcomputer can never reach.
But compared with microprocessor, the control function
and interface application is weak, and has other
disadvantages such as high price, high power consumption.
Its technique level for application design is limited, and the
developer tools need improve too. So it is also not fit for
using in a detection system[5~7].
PC has many advantages such as technology maturity,
powerful function and standardization, the designer don’t
need know the detail of its inside circuit, its peripheral
equipment is abundant and the application is very simple.
But PC is large in size, not fit for using in portable,
fluidity condition.
PC104 embedded system use low-power consumption
embedded CPU, and on its 90*96mm standard board,
almost all the functions a PC owned are exist on it,
including parallel interface, serial interface, floppy drive,
etc. In addition, it has LCD interface and matrix keyboard
interface which are very convenient to consist of a
detection system [8~9].
So low-cost, flexible structure, steady performance,
small in size, low power consumption, high reliability and
integration, can work under narrow space and poor
environment condition make embedded PC/104 be the
best choice to utilize in the fault detection system.
III. STRCTURE OF THE SYSTEM
The structure of the fault detection system is shown in
Figure1.
The fault detection system utilizes SCM-7020Bs
PC104 as the core processor, and ADT200 (SysExpand
ModuleTM/ADT680-AT) as the data acquisition card.
Vibrant sensors, an ADC and PC104 embedded module
consist of a data collection system.
817
 LCD Initializeation

sensors SCM-7020Bs

ADC
A/D Convert Starting

Control Upper
Center PC Frequence Calculating

figure1. System structure

A. PC104 embeded module Filtering Register Setting

PC104 embedded module is the core part of the system.
The main functions of the embedded module are data
remote communication and data storage. Its SVGA display
interface support CRT and TFT, so we can display the data
on a LCD if necessary. It is the controller of the data N Interrupt Judge
collection system.
B. ADT200
ADT200 is the expand board that based on PC/104, Y
and it works as the data acquisition card of the system.
Receives analog signal from the vibrant sensors, then Data Reading
converts analog signal into digital signal and transmit the
data to the SCM-7020Bs module.
C. Control Center and UpperPC Return
Control center and upper PC work as the follow-
figure2. Configuration Flow Chart
processing module in this system. The data transmits from
the embeded module to the control center or upper PC by Since the frequency of the vibrant signal gained from
serial interface, or by Ethernet. the gear-box is low than 4000Hz, we set the low-pass filter
Figure 1 shows the transmission of the data in this with frequency of 4000Hz. The Data collection is a sample
system, the vibrant sensors convert the signal into of the vibrant signal, a timer is used to give the interrupt
electricity signal, and transmit the signal to ADT200. The signal to the processor. To transmit the data to the center
digital data can store in the memory of PC104, or display controller or upper PC by RS232 need set the control bit of
on the LCD, or can transmit to control center and upper PC. the serial port, “1”to send data, “0”to stop data sending.
IV. SOFTWARE DESIGN Figure 3 shows a group of data that collected by this
system.
The software design of this fault detection system
includes data collection, data processing and storage, data
communication, etc. Data collection part takes responsible
for collection and storage of analog signal from vibrant
sensors. Converting analog signal into digital signal,
calculating frequency and filtering are in charged of data-
processing part. Data communication is responsible for
transmitting the data from embedded platform to the
control center or upper PC. The configuration of the
software flow is shown in figure 2.

figure3. Data Display

818

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 V. CONCLUTION AND PROSPECT
Based on embedded platform, we can collect the
vibrant signal from the gear-box in real-time, to do the
collection is to do the detection, and to analysis the signal
is to diagnose if the gear-box is out of order, or to
diagnose which part or what kind of fault had happened
in the gear-box, and the result of the diagnosis can stored
in a expert fault diagnosis system.
This paper is mainly about data collection, to analyze
the data, then diagnose the fault in real-time, and achieve
remote monitoring of the gear-box in real-time is our
future aim. We hope the technology can be used in the
automated-driving system, that means the central
controller of the auto-car must get a real- time monitoring
about the gear-box, and there should be a expert fault
diagnosis system offering as a database.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by Guangdong Sci. & Tech.
Plan with grant No.2007B080701002/No.20050201060
and Shenzhen Common Sci. & Tech. Plan.
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