Development of self-powered smart bearing for health condition monitoring

The bearing is the key part to keep continuous work in many important machines and it is of great significance for industrial manufacture. However, the bearing is most likely to be vulnerable. During the working process of the bearing, it can be wear failure to be damaged, due to the effects of work fatigue, lack of lubrication and impact of external impact. The smart bearing is the development trend in the future, which can realize the monitoring of working performance and prediction of fault degree for bearing by detecting the health condition signals of the bearing online. The smart bearing mainly contains wireless sensor module and power supply module. The wireless sensor module is arranged into the bearing to detect the real time signal data and send the data to the upper computer for process. The power supply module is responsible to provide energy for wireless sensor modules. In the early stages of many bearing failures, the fault information can be recognized from physical signals such as load, temperature, rotational speed and vibration. The wireless sensor module can detect these subtle abnormal signals to predict the failure. According to the monitoring information of smart bearing, the bearing can be maintained in time, so that it can extend the life of bearing and reduce the loss resulting from the faults of bearing. This paper reviews the recent develop of the smart bearing. The detecting signal of bearing, the power supply method, the interface circuits and the arrangement layout are discussed.