January 27, 2023

PROGNOST Systems goes wireless with Treon Industrial Node 6 Ex

PROGNOST Systems goes wireless with Treon Industrial Node 6 Ex

The challenge

Cost-efficient condition monitoring – suitable for hazardous areas

Conventional, wired condition monitoring solutions come at a high cost to prevent unplanned downtimes. Due to long installation and planning times wired monitoring solutions are often used for critical equipment only. Less-critical assets are measured with handheld devices at many plants. Wireless sensors replace handheld measuring devices, are easy to install, fast to deploy, and are much more cost-efficient. Most challenging in the development of a wireless alternative was to find battery-operated sensors that are available at an attractive price and suitable for installation in hazardous areas.

Integration into an existing system – sensor capabilities and data processing functionalities

Developing a wireless enhancement for PROGNOST®-NT required integrating wired sensors for critical assets and wireless sensors for less-critical machinery in one solution. Implementing this securely as an on-premises solution came with challenges.

"Treon's open software platform enabled easy integration of wireless products into PROGNOST®-NT. The highly engaged Treon technical support team resolved any pending questions quickly."
Ralf Thien
Product Manager - PROGNOST Systems GmbH

The solution

 
Wireless products – certified for potentially hazardous areas

 

Wireless and battery-operated sensors measure machine health data, such as surface temperature and vibration of rotating equipment. Those measured values are transmitted wirelessly from sensors to Gateways over a scalable mesh network. Treon Gateway collects and processes sensor data, runs custom applications, and sends data securely to PROGNOST’s backend. Treon Industrial Node 6 Ex enables measuring vibration and temperature in potentially hazardous environments.

 

“Treon’s product certifications, especially for hazardous areas Zone 1 HazLoc, ATEX, and IECEx enable usage in many countries. In addition to that the cost for the sensors is reasonable and comes at an attractive price-performance ratio,” says Ralf Thien, Product Manager at PROGNOST Systems.

 

Built on Treon Aito Platform – easy integration into PROGNOST®-NT

 

Integration of Treon’s wireless condition monitoring products into the existing and popular software PROGNOST®-NT was enabled by Treon’s open software platform. Treon Aito Platform, powering Treon devices, enables direct integration into the interface and functions of PROGNOST®-NT. Among other functions, the software allows the secure bi-directional exchange of data, as well as intelligent triggering of measurements based on process data. Those can be triggered on a fixed schedule, on-demand, or on-event.

 

The results

 

Intelligent online condition monitoring system for reliability in hazardous areas

 

Treon Industrial Node 6 Ex and Treon Gateway In Protective Enclosure enable wireless condition monitoring of machine health in potentially hazardous areas. Fully integrated into the PROGNOST®-NT online condition monitoring solution functionalities such as the intelligent triggering of measurements are allowed. Furthermore, the solution allows limit setting and alarming as well as the integration of process values via bus systems.

 

“We are delighted to help PROGNOST Systems offer their customers a competitive wireless solution to monitor tens to thousands of assets in their plant,” says Aibek Altynbek, Head of Business Development at Treon.

 

With the wireless Treon products for hazardous areas and an easy-to-use PROGNOST®-NT interface with advanced analytics, the online condition monitoring system helps customers to reduce downtime and increase cost-efficiency.

About the company

 

PROGNOST Systems

 

PROGNOST Systems GmbH, part of Burckhardt Compression AG, offers condition monitoring technologies for gapless and automated diagnoses of rotating equipment. A comprehensive offering of online machine diagnosis and system inspection supports all global players in the refining, gas- and petrochemical industry. In more than 40 countries PROGNOST Systems reduces operational downtime by providing reliable and accurate data, as well as outstanding customer support from certified experts.

 

PROGNOST®-NT is an all-in-one solution for condition monitoring with integrated machinery protection. It monitors machine health on critical and less-critical rotating equipment. This certified and reliable system uses deep learning methods to provide real-time and self-learning failure pattern detection of assets. Built as a modular system, it fulfills customers’ needs in an agile and flexible manner.

Customer stories

June 23, 2021

Developing a state-of-the-art turnstile solution

Developing a state-of-the-art turnstile solution

INTRODUCTION

 
KONE – A global leader in people flow

 

In this increasingly urbanizing world, KONE’s mission is to improve the flow of urban life. They understand urbanization and help their customers make the best of the world’s cities, buildings and public spaces.

 

KONE AND TREON
 

Treon is thrilled to collaborate with KONE Corporation for the development of KONE Lane turnstile. KONE is a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry, with a mission to improve the flow of urban life.

 

The collaboration started with a study of the possibilities of implementing a smaller footprint turnstile providing first class user experience based on the KONE design team’s vision and has continued with multitude of engineering challenges to make this Red Dot Design Award winning product a reality.

"KONE - A global leader in people flow. In this increasingly urbanizing world, KONE’s mission is to improve the flow of urban life. They understand urbanization and help their customers make the best of the world’s cities, buildings and public spaces.  KONE’s aim is to create the best People Flow experience for our customers and end users. KONE Lane is a great example of this in the context of office environment. The development of KONE Lane is also a living example of working together with our partners to make a vision become reality. The collaboration with Treon has been instrumental in this project. "
Visa Rauta
Head of Design - KONE

Reducing 90% of the floor space required Treon to rethink ways turnstiles are built. KONE Lane includes ToF (Time of Flight) camera -based sensor system developed by Treon for KONE achieving three-dimensional detection of the front of the turnstile.

"The KONE Lane project has been an opportunity every engineer can just dream of, working with the latest technologies, creating a beautiful product that will be used by people globally in their everyday lives. I'm really proud what we have achieved together with the KONE team! "
Kimmo Lahdensivu
Treon Chief Architect
About KONE

 

KONE Lane turnstile was launched in 2021 during the CTBUH Tall and Urban Innovation conference earlier this year, which showcases the best in innovative tall buildings, urban spaces, building technologies, and construction practices from around the world.

Case studies

January 21, 2021

World’s Most Advanced VR/MR headset

World’s Most Advanced VR/MR headset
INTRODUCTION

 

Varjo – The leading VR professionals
 

Varjo is the world’s hottest company in the industry-grade virtual (VR) and mixed reality (MR) device market. Professionals in several industries such as aerospace, aviation, automotive, industrial design, and more are using Varjo’s devices to carry out their work more efficiently. Varjo’s unique Bionic Display™ technology mimics how the human eye works to solve the most demanding challenges in the virtual reality tech space.

 

THE CHALLENGE

 

Solving the hard AR problem

 

Mixed reality applications offer huge cost savings for companies that traditionally train their staff in expensive simulators or build physical prototypes. With its first prototype, Varjo wished to create a pass-through device, which would help enterprises to perform simulations or design studies with photorealistic virtual replicas. The aim with XR-1, was to solve the ‘hard AR’ problem, which exists on optical see-through devices that always portray virtual elements as hazy and holographic without being able to display shadows or opaque content.

 

Virtual and mixed reality headsets are extremely demanding products technically. This combined with time pressure and the need for efficiency created a challenge for Varjo.

 

“We were thinking of who could help us with the prototype of the headset. We had a tight schedule, and Treon was up for taking the challenge. We could tell that they share the same passion that we have for the job. Their efficiency was also important to us”, Juha Pänkälä, Electronic Engineer at Varjo explains.

 

According to Treon’s Chief Engineer Jari Toivanen, designing a circuit board for such an advanced product is an immense challenge. Everything starts from mutual trust between the partners. Varjo’s and Treon’s similar working cultures and backgrounds have been a significant benefit in enabling the companies to share the workload in a very efficient way during these years of co-operation.

 

 

THE SOLUTION

 
Experts of electronic design

 

So-called fast design, one of Treon’s areas of expertise, is critical when developing products with such complexity as the mixed reality headset. Treon’s primary role in product development has been electronic design for the USB and MCU subsystems, power management, and circuit board layout. Additionally, Treon initially helped by providing mechanic design and broader development perspectives.

 

Implementation of the multiple display and camera interfaces was really a challenge both from schematics and layout implementation point of view. In addition, the development of USB-C alternate mode systems including power delivery is something new the team at Treon has learnt during the project.

”Working with Varjo has been very pleasant. It’s always a dynamic process when we are working on something new. Changes happen along the way, and everything happens fast. Good communication is the key to our success.”
Jussi Häkkinen
Electronics Designer, Treon
THE RESULTS
 
Award winning technology

 

The ongoing collaboration, that started in 2017, has proven to be successful. The XR-1 Developer Edition was the first device on the market capable of delivering an immersive experience so accurate that users truly cannot differentiate between the real and virtual worlds. The device empowers impactful and interactive applications across industries such as architecture, engineering, construction, automotive, research and development, and aerospace and aviation, among others.

 

Varjo XR-1 Developer Edition also won the 2019 Lumiere Award, which recognizes distinguished international achievements in the creation of immersive storytelling using advanced visual technologies such as VR, AR, and real-time rendering.

 

The latest feat of the collaboration between Varjo and Treon is the recently launched third generation of the headset, XR-3, which sets a new industry standard for visual fidelity across realities. During these past years, Varjo has grown to be the leading expert of virtual and mixed reality devices. The product development co-operation between Treon and Varjo goes on, particularly in the circuit board and electronic design.

"What started as a collaboration to build the prototype for XR-1 has now developed to a long partnership that has made already the third generation of the headset, XR-3, possible."
Mika-Petteri Lundgren
Principal Hardware Architect - Varjo

Case studies

May 27, 2020

Wireless Condition Monitoring at scale with Sulzer

Wireless Condition Monitoring at scale with Sulzer

INTRODUCTION

 

Sulzer – A global leader in fluid engineering

 

Sulzer is a global leader in fluid engineering and the world’s largest developer of pumping, agitation, mixing, separation, and application technologies. Sulzer operates via its network of 50 manufacturing facilities and 100 service centers across the globe.

 

Sulzer Sense – Wireless condition monitoring solution

 

In 2019, Sulzer introduced the wireless IoT condition monitoring solution, Sulzer Sense, which was developed in cooperation with Treon. Sulzer Sense increases Sulzer’s customers’ productivity and efficiency by allowing them to take care of their process equipment in an easy, safe, and convenient way.

 

THE CHALLENGE

 

Condition monitoring – A new way of doing things

 

If an organization has been operating with breakdown maintenance or regular planned maintenance, a changeover to condition monitoring can improve the plant availability and reduce costs significantly. Machine vibration and surface temperature are typical examples of condition data that can be collected from rotating equipment, including AC induction motors, pumps, compressors, conveyors, blowers, fans, and more. Changes in temperature or vibration patterns can indicate arising faults, or a need for maintenance.

 

Wireless sensors- The key to scalability

 

Only critical equipment is usually monitored with wired sensors. The high cost of installation and maintenance presents the biggest scalability challenges. That’s why the rest of the plant equipment – motors, pumps, fans, or gears may not be monitored effectively. This gives rise to the need for wireless sensors for condition monitoring. A wireless battery-operated sensor is easy and much more cost-efficient to deploy than a wired one. It can be up to 4x less expensive per measurement point and even 15x faster to deploy than a wired sensor.

 

THE SOLUTION

 

The wireless IoT sensor, co-developed with Treon

 

The wireless IoT sensor, co-developed with Treon, is the key component of Sulzer Sense. The sensor devices are attached to the pump, agitator, motor, and other rotating equipment to measure temperature and vibration. They send the data to the cloud to detect possible imbalance, misalignment, looseness, and bearing wear, and thus enable predictive maintenance. The sensors are provided with interference-tolerant wireless mesh connectivity to transmit data to the cloud via a gateway. The fully wireless design means that the devices are easy and cost-efficient to deploy and operate. No separate wireless network infrastructure is required. The scalability of mesh-network combined with easy deployment and the low total cost is the perfect combination that enables monitoring every machine in the factory.

 

THE RESULTS

 

Predict potential faults early to avoid downtime

 

Sulzer’s customers can now identify changes in equipment condition parameters and predict potential faults in due time to avoid downtime. Sulzer Sense is a result of a fruitful development cooperation project where Treon brought its expertise in developing industry-grade, wireless IoT products. Additionally, Treon’s customizable IoT gateway platform enabled the companies to build a robust end-to-end solution quickly.

"The device we codesigned with Treon is an important step in our digital journey. Combined with Sulzer's extensive online services and our deep knowledge of industrial processes, the Sulzer Sense wireless IoT condition monitoring system — as we call it in our portfolio — allows our customers to monitor any equipment 24/7, not just process-critical machinery. The measured data enables predictive maintenance and helps to avoid sudden equipment failure and eventual downtime.
Sami Saarenvalta
Development Manager - Sulzer​

Case studies