Development of an Internet of Things enabled manufacturing system for tool wear characterization

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) can reduce manufacturing cost, improve uptime, and help operators gain process insights. In this paper, we develop a system architecture for an IoT-enabled manufacturing system and demonstrate it on a bench-top milling machine. We explore on how we can build such a laboratory-scale system with commonly available, low-cost electronic sensors. Factors for designing such a system have been explored. The designed manufacturing system can take manufacturing inputs as G-Codes from the internet via a website as well as stream the data from several sensors to the internet. Engineering implementation of the system as well as its underlying ideology have been discussed. Micro ElectroMechanical System (MEMS) sensors have low cost, smaller form factor as well as tend to work with a variety of IoT enabled systems. This work evaluates the feasibility of using them for condition monitoring in manufacturing. These systems embody a sort of primary unit for enabling the `Smart Factory' revolution.