Golf Vehicle Component Wear Estimation for Predictive Maintenance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Off-road vehicles face challenges in predicting the health of inaccessible components, leading to unpredictable vehicle availability and potential hazards due to the 'fix-as-fail' maintenance strategy, or unnecessary component replacement before the end of their useful life.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle system equipped with sensors and processing circuits that analyze operational data to estimate component wear and tear, providing proactive maintenance alerts based on aggregate wear amounts and expected lifetimes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If pre-emptive replacement of critical components is performed ahead of the end of their useful life, then vehicle availability and safety are improved, but time and money are wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary assessment of component health status using sensor data and wear models before actual failure occurs. This allows maintenance to be scheduled at the optimal moment - neither too early (wasting time) nor too late (compromising availability), thereby resolving the contradiction between proactive maintenance benefits and maintenance time waste
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors component condition through sensors and provides feedback on actual wear status. This feedback loop enables dynamic adjustment of maintenance timing based on real component health data, replacing components only when wear indicators suggest imminent failure risk, thus avoiding premature replacement while ensuring availability
2Reliability
If pre-emptive replacement of critical components is performed ahead of the end of their useful life, then vehicle availability and safety are improved, but money is wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary wear assessment using sensor data and predictive models to identify components that are truly approaching failure. This enables replacement only when necessary, avoiding the waste of money associated with replacing components that still have useful life remaining, while maintaining vehicle availability
Solution Approach 2:
Continuous monitoring of component condition through sensors provides feedback on actual wear status, enabling cost-effective maintenance decisions. The system replaces components based on actual wear indicators rather than fixed schedules, optimizing the balance between reliability and maintenance cost by avoiding unnecessary replacements
3Loss of energy
If traditional fix-as-fail maintenance strategy is used, then maintenance cost and time are reduced, but unpredictable vehicle availability and hazardous conditions occur
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary detection of component degradation using sensor data and wear models before failure occurs. This allows maintenance to be scheduled proactively, ensuring vehicle availability while keeping costs reasonable by avoiding emergency repairs and unplanned downtime
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors component health and provides feedback on degradation trends. This enables transition from reactive fix-as-fail maintenance to predictive maintenance, where components are replaced based on actual condition data, improving availability while maintaining cost efficiency through targeted rather than blanket maintenance
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicle system includes a golf vehicle and at least one processing circuit. The golf vehicle includes a chassis, a body, tractive elements, a brake system, a suspension system, a motor, a battery coupled to the motor, and one or more sensors configured to acquire data associated with use of the golf vehicle and including at least an inertial measurement unit. The at least one processing circuit is configured to: acquire the data; determine an expected useful lifetime remaining for one or more components of the vehicle based on the data, the one or more components including at least one of the chassis, the body, the suspension, the motor, or the brake system; and display a notification prompting a user to replace the one or more components based on the expected useful lifetime remaining being below a replacement threshold.