n TECHNOLOGY November/December 2025 www.drivesncontrols.com 16 ABB HAS JOINED FORCES with the Dutch condition monitoring specialist Samotics – in which it took a 10% stake in 2022 – to develop a technology that can be retrofitted to existing VSDs to turn them into “gateways” for predictive maintenance of entire powertrains, in applications involving motors, pumps, fans, mixers and conveyors. The technology will allow users to monitor and identify changes in their drives’ operating behaviour – such as bearing wear or damage, coupling or gear misalignment, or pump cavitation – and to take remedial action long before costly failures and/or downtime occur. The technology can monitor equipment operating in hot, toxic or hard-to-access environments, previously regarded as “unmonitorable”. The service embeds Samotics’ Electrical Signature Analysis (ESA) technology into the drives to collect data which can be analysed to provide maintenance teams with real-time, actionable insights into the condition of their equipment. “This leap-forward in the modernisation of legacy drives promises to be a catalyst for the digital transformation of industry,” predicts Oswald Deuchar, global head of ABB Motion Services’ modernisation programme. “It enables quick, seamless and cost-efficient adoption of ESA technology for enhanced uptime, and immediate access to ABB’s support and services. Should an issue be detected, our customers can rely on the full support of ABB’s global expert network, including targeted actions to keep operations running consistently and reliably.” “Because ESA is embedded in the drive, it can monitor assets where other technologies struggle – such as submerged pumps or equipment in hot and toxic areas,” adds Simon Jagers, Samotics’ founder and co-CEO. “This is a key step toward autonomous, self-optimising operations that are at the heart of the factory of the future.” Initially, the ESA service will focus on two ranges of ABB low-voltage VSDs – the cabinet-built ACS600 and ACS800 drives. The upgraded drives will also benefit from ABB’s TÜV-certified cybersecurity measures. ABB says that the ESA technology complements its own vibration-based techniques to deliver the most complete view of powertrain health, including early fault detection, for extended uptime. From simple, low-speed assets to complex, high-speed systems, the two technologies will allow early fault detection, clearer service actions and enhanced reliability. The ESA-enabled drives gather electrical data directly from the powertrain. The data is translated into real-time insights on asset conditions. “By embedding ESA directly into the modernised drives, we unlock predictive insights across the entire powertrain,” says Deuchar. “This transforms drives into intelligent sensors that can detect changes in operating behaviour, enabling maintenance teams to anticipate potential faults before they can impact performance.” The ESA capability will form part of the ABB’s Ability suite of condition monitoring and digital tools and services. Samotics was founded in the Netherlands in 2015. It says it helps to bring “unprecedented visibility” to every critical industrial asset by analysing electrical signals using existing hardware or simple sensors, in combination with its own AI-driven platform. In 2022, Samotics entered a strategic partnership with ABB. www.abb.com https://samotics.com A CALIFORNIAN IOT SPECIALIST has announced an AI-powered app that allows users to perform on-the-spot visual plant inspections on an Apple iPhone or iPad, without needing wired cameras or cloud connections. Telit Cinterion’s deviceWise VI Assistant iOS app allows users to make decisions instantly, instead of having to wait minutes or hours for analysis results. The app can perform AI-powered inspection almost anywhere in a manufacturing or process plant. Users can apply AI throughout their production processes, without needing costly hardware or custom code. The app is an extension to the company’s deviceWise AI Visual Inspection system, which offers a no-code means of collecting and analysing visual data from production processes. It allows users to identify and address emerging quality control issues involving workstations, robots, CNC machines and more. This can lead to substantial reductions in downtime and rework, improving quality and helping to ensure that production schedules are met. For example, it can instantly identify flaws such as missing bolts, coating variations, or other critical aspects of product quality. Such insights can be critical in production environments such as just-intime manufacturing and Industry 4.0. “deviceWise with VI Assistant significantly enhances the ability of manufacturers to quickly find and fix problems using Apple devices,” says Telit Cinterion’s vice-president of deviceWise Industry 4.0, David De la Rosa. It “enables manufacturers to collect, transform and integrate data from any machine to any IT system, creating applications for Industry 4.0 and digital transformation”. www.telit.com/devicewise-ai-consultation iOS app delivers instant quality verdicts without costly cameras Tech turns VSDs into gateways for monitoring drivetrains ABB says the new ESA service marks a new era in digital powertrain monitoring, allowing legacy drives to be upgraded to unlock advanced analytics, quickly and cost-effectively.
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