E-LEARNING TOOLS FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN
DIAGNOSTICS AND MACHINE CONDITION MONITORING
Ondrej Kreibich and Radislav Smid
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Measurement
Czech Technical University in Prague, Technicka 2, Prague, Czech Republic
Keywords: e-Learning, Machine Condition Monitoring, Simulator.
Abstract: This paper presents an integration of e-learning into an existing course of diagnostics, machine condition
monitoring (MCM) and nondestructive testing (NDT), educated at our university. A diagnostics education
belongs to field of study where e-learning is used less commonly than in other fields for its necessity to
attending a laboratory. Laboratory education, forms an integral part of many university courses, mainly in
natural and technical university education, are necessary to improve students’ knowledge by experiments
with laboratory samples and devices. There could arise a problem for foreign and distance students, who
cannot physically attend these courses. Therefore the aim of this project is presentation of a possible
solution on the example of laboratory electro-mechanical device fully accessible via Internet.
1 INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, e-learning as a modern educational
method is used in many fields of study, mainly in
humanities, natural science and computer science.
On the other hand, there are a few fields e.g. in
Electrical or Mechanical Engineering, where
students should attend laboratory courses in order to
improve their knowledge by the experiments with
laboratory samples and devices.
Within the frame of recently solved project
concerning the development of vibrodiagnostic
device in our NDT laboratory, there has arisen an
idea to enable remote access to this vibrodiagnostic
device via the Internet and to extend the device with
IP camera. In addition to already existed online
support to this course in the Moodle system. Such
design helps to foreign and distance students almost
feel they are working with a real laboratory device.
Furthermore remote access to laboratory
equipment could not be used for education purposes
only; for instance could be suitable for presentation
of research projects.
2 PREVIOUS WORK
In the past, we developed for educational and
research purposes an electro-mechanical device, cal-
led vibrodiagnostic simulator. The simulator is based
on simple mechanical system, which is able to
demonstrate individual damages of transmission
system e.g. gear transmission, bearings and
unbalance (Vachtsevanos, 2006). These damages
can occur at common machines due to unsuitable
procedures in manufacture, unsuitable construction
and finally sudden changes in operating state.
Simulated damages are analyzed by means of
usual vibrodiagnostic methods. Results of analysis
of these phenomena can serve for project planning
of maintenance of devices in industry and thus
protect them against already mentioned damages
during expected lifetime of the devices. Next
important factors are minimalization of time for
maintenance and reparation, optimalization of
performance of the devices and provide safety of
operation.
Methods of simulation of possible damages can
be useful for searching and specification damages
without necessity for complete dismounting of all
machine.
The simulators are used in such cases where the
laboratory experiments on real devices are not
possible due to oversize of real machinery. Next
important reasons for application of simulators are
unavailability of real machinery testing samples,
limitations in manufacture and limitations
performance of real device.
357
Kreibich O. and Smid R. (2010).
E-LEARNING TOOLS FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN DIAGNOSTICS AND MACHINE CONDITION MONITORING .
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 357-361
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

Figure 1: The fundamental design of training device.
2.1 Mechanical Design
Mechanical components of the training device were
chosen from available commercial products, such as
DC motors, ball bearings, jaw couplings.
Commercially unavailable parts were made
individually.
Technical documentation of all the components
was made for manufacturing procedures of the
device.
Figure 2: The training device prepared for an exercise in
our laboratory.
Simulator is suitable for:
 demonstration of failures of gear transmission
 demonstration of failures of ball bearings
 demonstration of failures of unbalance
 measurement of revolution speed of device
 loading of device with electronically controlled
brake
 orbit measurement of one of the shafts due to
two sensors IN-081 (Brüel & Kjær).
2.2 Acquisition of Vibration Signals
Electronic control of the simulator was divided into
two individual sections (Fig. 3):
 Control unit - controls revolution speed of device
 Data acquisition unit - serves for digitalization of
signals received from accelerometers
Figure 3: The block diagram of data acquisition unit and
electronic control unit.
2.2.1 Electronic Control Unit
The control unit transforms data coming from PC
onto signal which is important for control of the
engine. For this purpose is most used PWM method
– pulse width modulation. Such received signal
controls power switch. By means of the alternating
switching on/off is changed average value of current
flow over DC motor and thus its speed of rotation is
controlled.
Speed of the engine rotation is detected by sensor
of RPM (optical encoder). Microcontroller is able to
find time period between of individual pulses and
this information is sent to the PC. By means of
simple calculation is determined the rotation speed.
2.2.2 Data Acquisition Unit
Data acquisition unit is PMD-1208FS provided by
Measurement Computing was used in this device
owing to relatively low price and direct support of
data acquisition toolbox under the Matlab software.
3 GOAL
First of all, there should be suitable to mention a few
words about knowledge and skills which students
attending our NDT laboratory course should obtain.
Within the framework of education at faculty of
electrical engineering there are students with good
theoretical background, but have never tried to apply
electrotechnical knowledge to other field before. In
this case the NDT course offers a great opportunity
to interconnection among electrical and mechanical
engineering.
The content of this course consists in finding and
diagnose damages in prepared material samples (in
case of demonstration of ultrasound, eddy-current
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and acoustic emission diagnostic methods) or on
laboratory devices (vibrodiagnostic method), the
same as mentioned simulator is.
Students gain experience in various NDT
methods, signal analysis, data acquisition and
principles of sensors operation. These experiments
bring to students significant improvement
engineering skills and imagination in addition to
theoretical education.
3.1 Integration of the Vibrodiagnostic
Simulator Device into e-Learning
Scheme
A meaningful extension of a classic laboratory
education by e-learning depends on providing the
similar perceptions to remote users like students
physically attending a laboratory have. Main these
perceptions are:
 visual sensation, students could easily figure out
how does device work and what to do for
successful manage the laboratory task.
 control and monitoring a device via PC
 data acquisition from sensors
 manipulation with a device.
If e-learning laboratory is useful, these
mentioned points will be respected. In case of
vibrodiagnostic simulator device, these points were
solved by the following way.
3.1.1 Visual Sensation
The visual sensation is assured by a video
transmission from IP camera which overlooking
motion and state of device to remote user. There is
used compact 1.3 megapixel network camera with
digital pan-tilt-zoom that enhances viewing and
monitoring. It uses 179 degrees wide angle lens to
view horizontal and 99 vertical degrees of the actual
vision. This cam lets move view around using a
smaller viewing window.
There is even possibility to define a preset path,
and the camera will cruise along the path you
defined. When there is something that catches user
attention, this cam allows zoom-in to see the details.
It also allows recording at the same time.
3.1.2 Control and Monitoring
The vibrodiagnostic simulator device was made as
fully electronically controlled from PC. There arise a
solution in the remote desktop which solve remote
access to device, thus any changes in design of
existent control unit were not required.
Figure 4: A snapshot from IP camera.
3.1.3 Control and Monitoring
The vibrodiagnostic simulator device was made as
fully electronically controlled from PC. There arise a
solution in the remote desktop which solve remote
access to device, thus any changes in design of
existent control unit were not required.
The remote desktop allows a user to log in to a
remote system and access the desktop, applications
and data on the system as well as control it remotely.
However, this is only available in certain Windows
editions, but for instance Windows XP and
Windows Vista have this system pre-installed. A
efficient firewall and regular system are
recommended to block unauthorized access.
3.1.4 Data Acquisition
Data acquisition is provided by unit, connected with
PC via USB interface, as described in 2.2.2. There is
one software environment for control and data
acquisition, equipped by GUI (graphical user
interface), programmed under Matlab software. A
remote user gets access to this application via
mentioned remote desktop.
3.1.5 Manipulation with the Device
Generally, according to principle e-learner has not a
free hand in manipulation with laboratory devices
and must rely on mechanical and software
possibilities which are allowed to them.
In the simulator case, manipulation is not
allowed even to attending students during laboratory
lesson for its complexity. Maintenance and changes
in the structure a supervisor does on its own.
Therefore the remote user has the same access to the
device as an attending student.
E-LEARNING TOOLS FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN DIAGNOSTICS AND MACHINE CONDITION
MONITORING
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Figure 5: The application screen.
4 FUTURE WORK
The above mentioned approach is applicable for e-
learning in this form; however there is still space for
an improvement and extension.
Firstly, with the remote desktop only one user
can work at the same time and other users have no
chance to login to the device. Therefore the next step
consists in programming web server application
which enables multiuser access. In this scheme a
user has access to the web application anytime and
entered parameters stay in a line. If the device is free
and prepared, it sends measured data back.
Furthermore similar concept is used to connect to a
device such as a PLC, which are used in machine
condition monitoring very often. Both, distance and
full-time students see how this technology works.
Secondly, a power-on function in the current
version of the device, mainly electronic control unit,
is not available, hence a staff must switch it on and
check the device for proper function.
Finally, in our NDT laboratory, there is another
current research project concerned Wireless Sensor
Network systems.
Within this project, the simulator will be
equipped with wireless sensor nodes which will
communicate over a gate connected with PC (Fig.
6). There will be nodes for measure:
 Temperature
 Vibration
 RPM
Figure 6: Block diagram of applied WSN on the training
device.
This network structure makes possible teaching in
next WSN fields in addition to signal analysis of
vibrodiagnostic signals:
 New applications of WSN
 Network topology (ad-hoc, mesh)
 Coexistence of various WSN
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 Disturbance in WSN
 Implementation of signal pre-processing into
nodes
One of the aims of this project is to make the
WSN system available to remote users and use it for
e-learning in NDT course or create a new course
concern WSN only.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we propose an enhancement of
machine condition monitoring education by means
of vibrodiagnostic simulator. This instrument adds a
real experience with analysis of fault symptoms
typical for rotating machinery. The integration of
remote accessed simulator with traditional Moodle
e-learning system and IP camera gives the teacher a
complex tool for effective remote delivering of
specialized knowledge in the area of machine
condition monitoring.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by the FRVŠ of the
Czech Republic, Grant No. 33/090480/13138 and by
the research program No. MSM6840770015
"Research of Methods and Systems for
Measurement of Physical Quantities and Measured
Data Processing " of the CTU in Prague sponsored
by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of
the Czech Republic.
REFERENCES
Vachtsevanos, G., Lewis, F., Roemer, M., Hess,A. & Wu,
B., 2006, Intelligent Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis
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Römer, K. Friedemann M., 2004, The Design Space of
Wireless Sensor Networks. IEEE Wireless
Communications 11 (6): 54–61. December 2004.
doi:10.1109/MWC.2004.1368897.
Hadim S., Nader M., 2006, Middleware Challenges and
Approaches for Wireless Sensor Networks. IEEE
Distributed Systems Online 7 (3): 1. 2006
doi:10.1109/MDSO.2006.19.
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