Grant: Engage Grants Program

In the Oil and Mining fields, a shut down of one hour can cost the plant around $50,000 of revenue losses in*Alberta and Saskatchewan. This operation mishap is usually referred to as a failure in one of the switched mode*power supplies in the backbone of the automation system in any plant. An innovative engineering solution would*be to predict any failure before its occurrence, in a systematic way, is highly desired. This requires cooperation of*the power electronics researchers to integrate a future predictive maintenance capability on such power supplies.*This project will provide an opportunity to convert an idea from a prototype to a successful product in the market.*This product will allow end users to monitor the status and health of their switch mode power supplies. Currently,*there are few reliable solutions to prevent switch mode power supplies from blowing. The existing solutions lack*reliability, availability, and affordability.*Health monitoring is needed as power supplies in the industry are blown quite often. Emphatec would like to*collaborate with Dr. Youssef and his team to develop a novel solution based on a growing trend in the industry,*namely Ethernet for control automation technology (EtherCAT). This is to provide a high speed communication*circuit for the monitoring of switched mode power supplies, the first of its kind for the Oil and Mining industries.