Agricultural Equipment Alert Harmonization for Preventive Maintenance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Agricultural equipment vendors often operate independently, leading to inconsistent fault detection and diagnostic capabilities, lack of preventative maintenance reminders, poor visibility into production lines, and difficulty in retaining qualified technicians, resulting in lost output and costly repairs.
Innovation Solution
A system that aggregates and harmonizes fault and preventative maintenance information from disparate machines, providing real-time notifications and enabling proactive scheduling of repairs or degraded operation modes, using sensors and AI to manage equipment health and extend equipment life.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If equipment from multiple independent vendors is used, then equipment functionality and production capability are improved, but fault detection consistency and maintenance visibility deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a central server as an intermediary that collects, harmonizes, and aggregates fault data from multiple disparate equipment vendors. This mediator translates inconsistent vendor-specific fault codes and diagnostic information into a unified format, enabling consistent fault detection and maintenance tracking across diverse equipment without requiring changes to the original equipment systems.
2Productivity
If equipment is operated until failure, then productivity and output are maximized, but repair costs and production loss increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by continuously monitoring equipment fault data and predicting potential failures before they occur. The central server analyzes aggregated fault information from multiple equipment sources, identifies trends indicating impending failures, and generates maintenance alerts that enable proactive scheduling of repairs during non-peak production periods, preventing catastrophic failures during high-output operations.
3Ease of repair
If real-time fault monitoring is implemented, then maintenance efficiency is improved, but system complexity and implementation cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The central server is designed as a universal platform that can handle fault data from multiple different equipment vendors and types through a single unified interface. It harmonizes diverse fault codes, diagnostic protocols, and data formats into a consistent structure, enabling the system to manage maintenance for heterogeneous equipment without requiring vendor-specific implementation complexity at each equipment location.
Data Source
AI summary
A device may include at least one processor coupled to the at least one memory and configured to: receive first data from a first sensor or a first programmed logic controller configured on a first machine and receive second data from a second sensor or a second programmed logic controller on a second machine, process the first data and the second data via a communication protocol to harmonize and aggregate the first data and the second data at a central server to generate an alert for one of the first machine or the second machine; and perform a repair or preventative maintenance, based on the alert, on one of the first machine or the second machine.