Airport Baggage Conveyor Monitoring

Major US airports can have thousands of conveyor motors in their baggage handling areas. These motors are often 5 to 10 or even 20 years old. Airports don’t have the budget to replace all these motors simply because they’re aging, Therefore, maintenance teams typically perform a labor-intensive physical check of each motor’s condition once a month to ensure they’re sound. Even with a checkup every 30 days, there is opportunity for a motor to fail without warning, causing unexpected baggage conveyor shutdowns. Along with this comes a series of problems, ranging from repair needs, to delayed customer luggage, to luggage logistics issues, to customer compensation, and customers questioning loyalty to their airline.

A top regional airport experienced occasional conveyor problems, including shutdowns due to aging motors. The airport wanted to find a way to get alerts of both acute line problems as well as early warnings of declining motor performance before it could cause a line shutdown.

The airport installed the Banner Wireless Solutions Kit with VIBE-IQ. The kit is composed of a DXM700 Controller with the VIBE-IQ vibration analysis script as well as vibration and temperature sensors and an HMI. The sensors were placed on several critical motors and other components of the conveying system, such as luggage diverters.

The VIBE-IQ detects unusual vibrations and temperatures picked up by the sensors. These vibrations indicate problems, such as luggage jams and declining motor performance. With this data, the maintenance team can quickly rectify these problems before they cause line shutdowns. The solution can catch motor temperature rise and unusual vibrations, such as those caused by worn bearings, loose motor mounts, or a slipping belt.

The kit’s HMI displays each motor’s condition in green, yellow, or red to indicate performance, ranging from good, to declining, to impending failure. The HMI allows an instant visual of motor condition, which the maintenance team now checks each morning. This eliminates the need for a labor-intensive monthly check of every motor, and it gives the maintenance team a real-time condition status of every component.

Shortly after installation, the VIBE-IQ detected unusual vibration due to a jammed luggage diverter, which failed to divert baggage to the correct destination. When the maintenance team got the warning, it was able to immediately identify the problem location and correct it.

Due to the successful pilot tests and product scalability, the airport maintenance team plans to expand the solution as more funds become available. The team plans to add sensors to more conveyor components and connect the system to Banner’s Cloud Data Services to enable offsite 24-hour monitoring capabilities.