October 3, 2011 – National Instruments introduced the Watchdog Agent Prognostics Toolkit for NI LabVIEW system design software, which expands the capabilities of LabVIEW in machine prognostics and health management (PHM) applications. The toolkit is a product of collaboration between NI and the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Intelligent Maintenance Systems at the University of Cincinnati. It is ideal for serving engineers’ increasing demand for monitoring and reporting the health status of machines, structures, components and systems. The Watchdog Agent toolkit gives engineers a ready-to-run prognostics solution that can greatly increase engineering efficiency for developing any PHM application.
The toolkit works with the advanced signal processing capabilities of LabVIEW and the extensive analysis of the NI Sound and Vibration Measurement Suite. It provides a set of algorithms including logistic regression, statistical pattern matching, a self-organizing map, a support vector machine and a Gaussian mixture model. Engineers can use these algorithms to create machine and component status descriptors of operating states and failure modes. The algorithms convert multiple field sensory readings into summarized health information values for efficient monitoring. The toolkit also includes a health radar chart that displays organized health values of multiple machine components on a single display.
In addition to integrating with the Sound and Vibration Measurement Suite, the Watchdog Agent toolkit can read history data collected from the NI measurement hardware including NI CompactRIO, CompactDAQ, PXI and PCI. It also integrates with the IOtech eZ-TOMAS Technical Data Management Streaming (TDMS) data plug-in, vibDaq from CalBay Systems or any other sensory data acquisition systems based on NI TDMS data files.
“Companies are looking for a systematic approach to rapidly develop and deploy prognostics for failure prevention, health monitoring and machinery prognostics,” said Dr. Jay Lee, professor and director of the Center on Intelligent Maintenance Systems. “The new Watchdog Agent Prognostics Toolkit for NI LabVIEW provides an easy-to-use solution for predictive maintenance and prognostics.”
About National Instruments
National Instruments is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with its largest customer representing approximately 4 percent of revenue in 2010 and no one industry representing more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has approximately 6,100 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 12 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.