Condition monitoring enables companies from all industrial branches to maintain high availability of their automation systems. Thus, condition monitoring is a fundamental technology to maximize operational productivity by predicting potential fault occurrences that lead to unavailability of the automation systems. Today, performing condition monitoring is successfully achieved using custom-developed software solutions. However, the development of these software solutions is a challenging task as it requires extensive knowledge from multiple engineering disciplines. In this context, there is a high need for a systematic way to formalize this knowledge. Ontologies have had significant success in fulfilling this need by providing a formal model of domain concepts and their relations.In this paper, we present our condition monitoring ontology for automation systems and contribute with a conceptual model. This ontology incorporates ISO standards for condition monitoring and key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs aggregate numerous sensor values in a few understandable numbers and, therefore, provide more efficient insight in condition of automation systems. To evaluate our work, we developed a condition monitoring knowledge-based system for a centrifugal separator based on the proposed ontology in an industrial project and report about lessons learned.

Communication between two or more participants is obtained through a non ideal transmission medium. Such medium is usually characterised by different types of distortions which affect transmitted signal. Many of them are not completely avoidable. In order to minimize their effect at the receiver end, adequate performance measure of distortion-to-signal influence is needed. As the one of the most reliable measures for evaluating total distortion on transmitted signal, from transmitter to receiver end, we consider a bit error rate. In this paper, we propose a low-cost bit error rate measuring system constructed as RTL-SDR based wireless Hardware-In-The-Loop system. The proposed measuring system is tested in indoor environments on BPSK modulated signals. Obtained results show high matching with theoretical expectations. Also, for the proposed system adequate graphical user interface is created in the Matlab.

High availability of automation systems is one of the main goals for the companies from all industrial branches. To achieve and maintain this high availability, the condition monitoring of the automation systems is an essential building block. However, as automation systems become increasingly equipped with numerous mechanical, electrical, and software components, creating a condition monitoring solution is becoming more and more challenging and requires knowledge from multiple engineering disciplines. Today, creating a condition monitoring solution is mostly based on the experience and preferences of the developers without a systematic and interdisciplinary method. Today, methods and tools supporting an interdisciplinary development exist. However, they do not fully consider condition monitoring relevant information. In addition, tools that increase software productivity and ease the adjustment of condition monitoring software are lacking. The main goal of this paper is to narrow the condition monitoring expertise gap by proposing convenient, systematic, and automated techniques to support the development of condition monitoring solutions from their design to their implementation. To achieve this goal, we propose an extension of the CONSENS systems engineering method to face issues caused in the design phase. By adopting a Model-Driven Development (MDD) approach, we propose a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) for condition monitoring that promotes increased understandability, and automation during the software implementation phase.