Research & Science
Taking Thermal on the Move
University of South Carolina Maximo Experience Lab combines Flir technology with Spot’s mobility and IBM asset management
Engineering students at the University of South Carolina are exploring streamlined ways to perform condition monitoring using technology from Flir and Boston Dynamics while also incorporating the latest iteration of the IBM’s enterprise asset management solution, Maximo Application Suite (MAS). For this real-world engineering use case, students at the Maximo Experience Lab mounted a Flir A700 thermal camera onto a Spot robot dog and integrated it with Maximo for automated thermal inspections.
Students with the lab use their Spot robot dog to perform thermal imaging inspections around campus along pre-programmed routes, checking pumps, motors, bearings, boilers, chillers, and other utilities, as well as searching for cracks in concrete.
By mounting the Flir A700 thermal camera with a FlexView® dual field of view lens on Spot’s gripper arm, they could more easily inspect targets from multiple angles while retaining use of its claw.
One of the advantages of using Spot for inspections is its ability to integrate with Maximo Visual Inspections (MVI), an AI computer vision tool that performs automated detection, classification, and analysis of images and videos. Thanks to this integration, Spot can automatically run its images through Maximo for analysis based on training data. Maximo will then record results to the larger Maximo system and can issue follow-up actions if needed from user-defined workflows.
Any time the thermal camera detects signs of wear or impending failure, Spot generates an automatic work order and sends it to technicians to initiate a repair.
“Spot sees the same way every time. It doesn't get tired, it doesn't think about the ball game, it doesn't look away,” says Maximo Lab Center Manager, John Ward. “You're ensured every time it does a walk there, it's seeing everything you want to see and it's evaluating everything you want to see. This is all about uptime, availability, and efficiency.”
Spot uses programmable logic controllers (PLCs) through Maximo to communicate—allowing it to trigger a workflow based on its analysis of thermal images that tells a PLC to stop machinery before further issues ensue.
“We have a Spot that can integrate and feed data to all the systems that run that operation. It can walk out there, look, see and act,” Ward explains.
The USC lab’s Spot build is an impressive tool for automated inspections, but it also highlights the capabilities of how thermal data can be used within a Maximo system.
Temperature data alone can be a huge benefit for tracking asset health, but when fed into a program such as Maximo, users can incorporate it into their greater condition monitoring system and have added context when looking for trends in asset health. Thermal imaging provides another dimension to the already powerful tracking, organizing, and analysis that Maximo performs.
“What we are promoting at IBM is a condition-based maintenance approach and how to build a visualization of health scores of assets,” explains IBM Principal Value Consultant Tom Woginrich. “Where this comes into play is leak detection, area cleanliness, temperature related issues on bearings, and motor connectivity. These are things where infrared can play a role… in terms of the insight for trends of performance. This is one of the key maintenance capabilities to give clients insights for how healthy their assets are.”
For current Maximo users, thermal imaging can be a tool to further empower their current inspection program. Maintenance teams can have thermal data captured alongside additional condition monitoring systems, gain greater insights, perform automated visual analysis on thermal images, and keep the results coordinated across entire companies and teams.
The team at the USC lab continues to work on its Spot build, improving integration into IBM MAX and exploring more use cases for the robot dog. The team is also providing live demonstrations at the lab, in conjunction with IBM, to show off the system in real-world settings. Click the link below to contact the USC lab for more information, or click the A700 button to learn more about the Flir thermal camera used in their project.
