Wireless mote-based in-process diagnostics using hand-held tools in network enabled manufacturing environments

When complex manufacturing systems are considered, post process inspection can be a very time consuming and costly. In addition, no inspection data is typically collected unless a major problem is encountered. Real-time monitoring of the manufacturing processes and verification of its product quality are two important factors to reduce the manufacturing lead time and to ensure safety and quality. In this thesis, a diagnostics and root-cause analysis scheme with a single channel wireless routing protocol for real-time monitoring of process quality of pull-type fastening operations is first presented. The overall architecture has been implemented on a Huck45 pull-type tool, which is a hand-held pneumatic fastening tool used extensively in the aerospace industry, with lock-bolt fasteners. The proposed architecture (I) detects quality problems in real-time during the fastening process and (2) reduces post-process inspection. Extensive hardware results by using the hand-held tool are included. On the other hand, due to tool mobility, ad-hoc wireless networking routing protocol is necessary to enable real-time monitoring and increase the process visibility. Thus, in the second chapter of this thesis, a novel multi-channel energy efficient routing protocol for ad hoc wireless networks that ensures network quality of service (QoS) in terms of throughput and end-to-end delay is introduced for such hand-held tools. The network QoS effects the overall monitoring when multiple tools are utilized. The performance of the multi-channel multi-interface routing protocol for network-enabled manufacturing environments was successfully verified using Ns2 simulations and contrasted with a single channel routing protocol implemented in Chapter I of the thesis --Abstract, page iv