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PROJECTS - CASE STUDIES
Defence
Hensoldt GmbH
Resonate Systems were engaged by Hensoldt GmbH to develop two custom data acquisition systems to assist with the qualification of radar antenna performance against specifications.
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With a tight schedule, the systems needed to be specified, designed, built and commissioned within 3 months.
Resonate Systems applied agile project management techniques and test-driven development to identify and address key technical risk areas and rapidly iterate towards a solution that satisfied Hensoldt’s critical requirements within the required timeframe.
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Each deployed system consisted of two 20-channel data acquistion system: One attached to rotating components and transmitting data via WiFi; and the other mounted on the radar tower.
The systems were to be simultaneously deployed at two sites running continuously for a period of 4 months.
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The systems measured a range of signal types from devices including wind sensors, tachometers, AC and DC accelerometers, laser distance sensors, rotary encoders, and tilt sensors.
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All data was time synchronous and stored in a common format with meaningful meta-data tailored towards Hensoldt’s requirements.
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Using open-source tools such as Python and MongoDB, Resonate Systems developed a data management process that allowed for effective searching of the data sets during the analysis stage.
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Training in the effective use of these software tools was provided to Hensoldt allowing their engineering team to complete their assessment and support the equipment in future installations.
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By completion of the monitoring period the systems had characterised over 1.5 million antenna rotations and allowed Hensoldt to develop a deep understanding of the mechanical dynamics of the radar in a range of environmental conditions.
QUALIFICATION OF ANTENNA DYNAMICS
Rail
SNC Lavallin
To assist SNC Lavalin in monitoring the structural integrity of rolling stock, RESONATE SYSTEMS developed a customised measurement system for a long-term study; including components such as a web front-end to data, enabling end users to request and inspect data remotely.
To gain a full understanding of the dynamic environment and loads rolling stock is subject to over its lifetime, the custom data acquisition system measured static and dynamic strain and GPS data.
RESONATE SYSTEMS designed and developed the system to be rugged and capable to monitor for a period of 12 to 18 months. The system was also provided remote data uploads to a dedicated web portal.
The systems were installed in locations subjected to high level of vibration and with limited opportunities to perform inspection and maintenance once in the field. As such, the design had to be robust, simple to operate and verified/approved for rail use
With clearly defined measurement requirements from SNC Lavalin and to meet the project objectives, RESONATE SYSTEMS defined how to best acquire data and specified the full set of necessary infrastructure required to meet the client’s objectives.
Through this project, RESONATE SYSTEMS demonstrated a broad range of capabilities by having designed and built the custom onboard monitoring system, undertaking the on-site installation, developing a tailored web data access portal and through the provision of timely client reports.
ROLLING STOCK STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY MONITORING
Agriculture
APAL Agricultural Laboratory
RESONATE SYSTEMS worked with APAL to industrialise a soil analysis process.
APAL collaborated with CSIRO and the University of Adelaide over a 12-month period to develop more efficient and cost-effective spectroscopic Near InfraRed (NIR). The collaboration pushed to develop methods for high throughput soil analysis in agriculture to reduce previous laborious and expensive manual processes.
By streamlining this process, the objective to produce a tenfold increase in throughput per day was achieved.
The analysis performed by measuring the laser light reflected back from the soil sample is followed by statistical modelling to determine the soil composition. Prior to RESONATE SYSTEMS’ development, this process was undertaken manually requiring a number of inputs into data files of various formats.
RESONATE SYSTEMS’ role was to take that analysis module and automate it by developing supporting data-handling and automation routines to interface the core NIR soil analysis module provided by the University of Adelaide Researchers.
Throughout the process, existing manual test setup and data entry procedures were replaced by software automation. To achieve this, RESONATE SYSTEMS worked alongside APAL to understand the interface between existing NIR scanning equipment and prediction software.
Scripting routines for loading and unloading of the soil samples by robot were also developed thus removing the need for human interaction between setting up the measurements and analysing the results.
To achieve the objectives the project was delivered in 3 stages:
Stage 1 - Build an automated platform to import spectra from the analysis instrumentation, perform predictions and then export data.
Stage 2 - Automate the reporting and Quality Assurance of results through integration with APAL's laboratory information management system (LIMS).
Stage 3 - Interface NIR instrumentation with customised hardware capable of running the daily throughput targets.
The project delivered software process improvements to the NIR soil analysis system. The reduced sample time now drives efficiency withing APAL and adds value to the APAL’s customers.
DEVELOPMENT OF A SAMPLE ANALYSIS AUTOMATION INTERFACE
Infrastructure
Department of Planning ,Infrastructure and Transport
RESONATE SYSTEMS in partnership with SAGE Automation, provided a condition monitoring solution for the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI).
The addition of continuous monitoring aligns with DPTI long term strategy of reducing asset cost of ownership.
At the time of construction the O-Bahn Tunnel represented a major infrastructure project for the state of South Australia.
Jet fans ventilate the tunnel to prevent build-up of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and particulates that reduce visibility.
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As a highly-utilised public transport corridor, tunnel shutdowns are not acceptable to the owner-operator and the general public.
As such The autonomous collection of data as input to a predictive maintenance scheme is therefore essential.
Using lessons learned on the Heysen Tunnels, DPTI commissioned an automated system for vibration and electrical monitoring of six jet fans to minimise maintenance cost and scheduled maintenance, and repairs.
The monitoring system asses both the fan motors and supporting structure and includes bearing defects, fan imbalance and structural changes.
Monitoring of electrical parameters includes the voltage and current driving each fan and focuses on the detection of unusal voltages on the fan supply.
The data collected is integrated into the tunnel SCADA and PLC system.
O-BAHN CITY ACCESS TUNNEL VENTILATION CONDITION MONITOR
Research & Development
University of Adelaide
In collaboration with the Cooperative Research Centre for Optimising Resource Extraction, Professor Nigel Spooner’s group at the University of Adelaide are researching ways to create a new and unique mineralogy ‘spectral fingerprint’ database. This will lead to the rapid development of new, low-cost and robust sensing technology capable of being applied in a range of mining and mineral processing applications.
At this development stage, manually executing a single iteration of the research experiment could take up to 20 minutes for a proficient user. The project requires running thousands of iterations of the experiment, making automation the only feasible mean for effectively conducting this research programme.
A high degree of automation was needed to control multiple pieces of scientific-grade hardware and to deliver the necessary experimental data within the required timeframes.
Resonate Systems was engaged to develop a framework to interface, configure and provide a consistent and scalable method of communicating with several instruments.Ten pieces of laboratory equipment, from the OPOs (Optical Parametric Oscillators) to simple rotating stages were interfaced. While each individual interface was being developed, they were integrated into the main interface (UI), allowing users to continue testing with a combination of automatic and manual configuration until the full functionality was achieved.
EXPERIMENT SEQUENCE AUTOMATION
Medical
X-RAY BAKE OUT AUTOMATION
MICRO-X
RESONATE SYSTEMS developed a new production process control software for MICRO-X whom design, develop and manufacture a range of innovative, ultralightweight, mobile X-ray imaging systems for medical and security applications.
By controlling and monitoring the bake out process in real-time, the software contributes to improving X-ray tube production throughput, increase the overall process
safety, and support quality assurance.
As part of the manufacturing process, an X-ray tube is subjected to a high temperature treatment under vacuum. This process, referred to as bake out, is necessary to remove unwanted gasses and contaminants that can affect the tube performance.
MICRO-X developed a dedicated bake out rig and required a precise and simple to use process control software.
The RESONATE SYSTEMS developed software provides:
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Process automation
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Control of bakeout parameters
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Supervision and verification
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Safety via real-time monitoring
The software controls and monitors two temperature and two pressure channels via PID controllers, while interfacing with rig control equipment and visual status indicators.
The software also monitors the process performance to automatically alert the operator if an invalid bake out occurs.
The system incorporates safety protocols to interrupt the process and alert the operators should unsafe conditions develop.
The complete process dataset and metadata are captured for traceability and quality assurance.
Images courtesy of MICRO-X
FIBRE MARKING RIG
Flinders University
Resonate Systems developed a software application to automatically detect Fibre Bragg gratings in an optical fibre and mark the location.
Developed within the National Instruments (NI) Labview programming language, the software included the interfacing to a Fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) interrogator and Lastek marking and printing jig.
FBGs allow optic fibres to be used as extremely sensitive temperature and mechanical strain sensors.
The research team have incorporated these sensors into medical devices such as catheters to give practitioners a high level of feedback and information to assist with monitoring conditions and procedures.
In order to create the sensors, the FBGs must be located within the optical fibre. These are not visible and therefore have to be located by stimulating a change in their properties as the fibre is scanned. The existing software to control this process was written over many years of research and had become cumbersome to manage and maintain.
Resonate Systems’ certified LabView architect rewrote the software using best practices to achieve a clean modular architecture and greatly improve stability and testing speed.
This included wrapping various sections of a job into discrete, modular sections of code that allow for simple variations into the future and changes to particular pieces of equipment. Resonate Systems performed off-site testing prior to commissioning as well as spending appreciable time in the laboratory post installation to ensure that the implementation run smoothly.
Resonate Systems delivered an optical fibre marking device that accurately (+/- 0.1 mm) identifies and marks the locations of specific perturbations in the core of optical fibres.
As a result of the development, the manufacturing time required to produce optical fibre based pressure, force and strain sensing devices was reduced by a factor of 8x, in some cases, to six minutes with the feasibility to further increase the operation speed in future.
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