Machine Process Monitoring with Synchronized Event Time Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
High-speed filling machines face challenges in accurately characterizing machine performance during a single operating cycle, leading to sub-optimal performance, reduced throughput, and increased maintenance costs due to cumbersome root cause analysis and inefficient condition monitoring.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for process monitoring that retrieves video and audio data, aligns time stamps of machine control instructions with execution times using a master clock, and synchronizes these with measurable machine conditions to provide a comprehensive representation for improved condition monitoring and evaluation of control instructions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If filling machines operate at very high speeds to increase throughput, then productivity increases, but measurement precision and ability to accurately characterize machine performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The monitoring system segments the analysis by dividing machine operation into discrete events, each with associated control instructions. This segmentation allows detailed temporal analysis of individual events even at high speeds, resolving the contradiction between high throughput and precise performance characterization.
Solution Approach 2:
The system adds a temporal dimension to performance monitoring by aligning control instruction timestamps with event execution timestamps and sensor signals. This multi-dimensional synchronization approach enables accurate performance characterization at high speeds by analyzing the temporal relationships between control actions and machine responses.
2Device complexity
If traditional condition monitoring methods are used in high-speed machines, then device complexity remains low, but reliability and ability to identify faulty behavior deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The monitoring system uses a universal synchronized timestamp framework that can simultaneously handle multiple data sources including control instructions, video data, audio data, and sensor signals. This multi-functional approach improves reliability of faulty behavior identification without requiring separate complex systems for each data type.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces timestamps synchronized to a master clock as an intermediary that mediates between different data sources. This intermediary enables precise alignment and correlation of control instructions with machine responses and sensor data, significantly improving the ability to identify faulty behavior while maintaining manageable system complexity.
3Measurement precision
If multiple data sources are integrated for comprehensive monitoring, then measurement precision improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple data sources (control instructions, video, audio, sensor signals) into a single synchronized temporal framework using master clock timestamps. This merging approach maintains measurement precision by preserving the temporal relationships between different data types while simplifying the overall system architecture through unified timestamp alignment.
Data Source
AI summary
A method is disclosed comprising retrieving captured process data comprising video and/or audio data capturing at least part of the execution of events in a machine, retrieving at least a first signal representing a measurable machine condition responsive to the events executed, wherein a first sequence of said machine control instructions is configured to trigger a respective first set of said events for execution thereof, determining first time stamps of the machine control instructions, aligning the first time stamps with second time stamps determined for at least one of; i) times of execution of said first set of events determined from the captured process data; ii) the first signal and associated measurable machine condition retrieved in response to execution of said first set of events, displaying a representation of the first sequence of machine control instructions, associated with the first time stamps, together with an output representation said second time stamps.