Overview
SensWIRING project developed a wiring health monitoring system, WHM. The main focus was on the development of smart sensor network with defect detection functions, a low power embedded electronics, a wireless communication component and an energy harvesting and management function. The development of the sensing technology that fits into the wire harness and fulfils their measurement function properly was the main goal. Besides developing the defect sensing technology, the measurement techniques and parameters as well as the interpretation of the measurements were performed. The developed WHM was prototyped, tested and demonstrated in a laboratory environment. The SensWIRING project was a milestone in the technology for on-board WHM.
Funding
Results
Executive Summary:
The sensWIRING project developed a wiring health monitoring, WHM, system. The main focus was on the development of smart sensor networks with wire defect detection functions, a low power embedded electronics, a wireless communication component. An energy harvesting and management function solution was analysed. The development of the sensing technology that fits into the wire harness and fulfils their measurement functions properly was the main goal. Besides developing the defect sensing technology, the measurement techniques and parameters as well as the interpretation of the measurements were performed. The developed WHM was prototyped and tested at laboratory environment. SensWIRING project is a milestone in the technology for on-board WHM.
The main aim of this project was to develop a system for monitoring harnesses defects, by implementing an integrated and delocalised sensors network. A harness can suffer from a number of defects, such as chafing, cracking, or chemical modifications. The WHM system is able of detecting and locating defects and damages in the wire harness, which will be detected locally in the vicinity of the sensor. A sensor network will be implemented with the sensors communicating together to report the health condition of the harness to a central node. Locally, each passive sensor node will embed:
- a measurement/detection function;
- a communication function; and
- an energy harvesting and management function.
The development phase was based on demonstrating the developed technologies, initially as a proof-of-concept, then as a non-integrated prototype and finally as an integrated prototype. The developed technologies effectively detects chafing at ambient temperature. Fully integration into the harness was not achieved and further developments are still required for the technologies to be ready for industrial application.
An effective system as sensWIRING to monitor and early locate intermittent predecessors to catastrophic faults can dramatically decrease maintenance cost and time burden and at the same time improve safety while tackling Europe’s environment concerns and objectives. The developed system will firstly be dedicated to aircrafts; nevertheless technology transfer to other applications areas, in particular automotive, maritime transport, railway, energy and industrial equipment are expected.