Casestudie Breakdown prediction Contell PILOT - Transumo

The third mentioned Centron Environmental Monitoring System is a building
management system (BMS), which is designed to monitor the infrastructure of a
whole building. Centron can be used to control access to labs or other important
rooms. In addition to that, the system is able to save energy by turning off the lighting
in empty rooms for instance. [Rees06]
More important for this diploma thesis is the ability to monitor the temperature of
cooling devices. Again, sensors are attached to freezers and the signal is transmitted
to a web server. The possibilities to display and analyze historical data are very
similar to XiltriX. Also the used technology is similar because historical data can also
be accessed by a simple web browser. [Rees06]
Figure 3-13 exemplifies the ability to display two graphs with different temperature
scales. Drawing a graph like that is impossible with XiltriX because it is only capable
of using one scale per axis. Another advantage of Centron is the possibility to
integrate floor plans, so that in case of an alarm not only the name of a device is
displayed but also the location. As Centron is not only a temperature monitoring
system but a building management system, it offers the possibility to use nearly all
kinds of connected devices to send a remote notification in case of a fridge’s
malfunction. [Rees06]
But minor differences like that do not provide a better way of data analysis because
the general approach of just defining critical temperature limits remains the same.
That is why Centron is faced with the same problems like all other introduced
products in the market. Hence, other approaches have to be found to improve the
current situation. As already pointed out in section 2.4.1, additional sensors could
improve the lack of information partly. But installing additional hardware is coupled to
increasing expenses. That is why this diploma thesis focuses on data analysis of the
already recorded data to gain additional status information of monitored devices.
This chapter introduced major available monitoring products in the market. Some
systems are kept simple. Other systems offer many additional features. But a
detailed analysis of all these products discovered, that they are all based on the
same insufficient idea to set critical temperature limits.
Hence, other approaches have to be found that do not only use the current
temperature but also the stored past time data to determine a cooling device’s
condition. Therefore, the next chapter will review the current state of research within
the setting of sensor based temperature monitoring and other similar settings.
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