MQTT Makes Data Collection Easy for Vibration Analysis

Motion Amplification® has quickly become a standard among the world’s best maintenance and reliability programs, thanks largely to the amazing video results that help users visualize data to understand their assets better. Motion Amplification analysts create astonishing video reports where machine faults jump off the screen, and corrective actions immediately appear to all viewers. What may be less obvious is behind every pixel of video is rich vibration data that can be exported and stored, viewed, or analyzed in any program where machine condition data is utilized.

With the release of RDI Technologies’ newest innovation, the Iris Edge™, and the accompanying Motion Amplification version 3.7 software, users now can leverage MQTT communication protocol to automatically transfer these vibration data to a broker and be easily accessed by a Pi Historian, control system dashboard, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), or any of the rapidly expanding field of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Twin products that requires large data to optimize their Machine Learning models.

What is MQTT?

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is an open-source, lightweight communication protocol that has become one of the predominant standards used on the Internet of Things (IoT) and other applications. MQTT utilizes a Publish-Subscribe model, in which the publisher (Iris Edge or Iris CM™ device) delivers a pre-formatted data packet to a broker. Subscribers, such as AI/ML programs, access the data on the broker to populate the appropriate data fields.

MQTT Publishing Process

This extremely efficient protocol offers several advantages. The binary format of the MQTT packet creates a very small data file that can be easily transferred with minimal processing power, bandwidth, and storage requirements. The Publish-Subscribe model allows for asynchronous communication, meaning the publisher and subscriber don’t ever have to be online simultaneously, and eliminates any waiting time for data transfer. Furthermore, multiple subscribers can access the data from a single publisher without any added requirements on the publishing system. Finally, MQTT protocol is open-source and mature, able to accommodate nearly any programming language or security requirement, and has well-developed quality of service capabilities, ensuring uninterrupted operation and minimizing potential points of failure.

Online Motion Amplification®

RDI Technologies introduced Online Motion Amplification with the introduction of the Iris CM several years ago. Online Motion Amplification systems utilize fixed cameras to monitor vibration levels in critical assets. User-configurable trigger parameters are programmed into the system using Motion Monitor™ software; when a trigger parameter is breached, the system collects and stores a video file which can be accessed anytime by the user and analyzed using all the powerful features of Motion Amplification.

The addition of Iris Edge brings several new advantages. An auto-focused pan/tilt camera enables the monitoring of even more assets with a single camera. The single power-over-ethernet (PoE) connection supplies both power and data, enabling extremely easy installation without being limited by cable-run distances or proximity to MAINS power. The camera’s onboard processor calculates the vibration data and immediately publishes it to the MQTT broker and to the native Motion Monitor™ dashboard. If a trigger parameter is breached, the Iris Edge captures the video file where the analyst can access it. An indication that a trigger has alarmed will be included in the subsequent data packet, alerting the users that there is a video file requiring analysis.

The Iris Edge can be used with an existing Iris CM installation or deployed as a stand-alone system. This system offers nearly unlimited data points to be measured from a single camera, delivering an incredible amount of meaningful machine condition data via MQTT while also providing the awesome features of Motion Amplification analysis. Online condition monitoring has never been more accessible or powerful.