Question

We have a project where we need to incorporate smart technology in a product made by a certain brand that we were assigned. We were assigned Stihl, here is a link to their website: https://m.stihlusa.com/. One idea we had was to incorporate an app that would link all the Stihl tools you had and then show you oil life and certain things like that. Any ideas you can come up with would be great. The smart technology needs to be something new and innovative.

Answer 1

I visited stihlusa website, their facebook page, twitter profile and the youtube channel. They are the company that manufactures equipment like chainsaw, blowers, trimmers, etc.. I have also searched for the hashtag #stihl to find what the users have to tell about them.

One user told that his product had a breakdown because of ‘lack of lubrication’ and the warranty doesn’t cover that.

So, I would like to propose to make an electronic system that monitors various temperatures at different positions of the equipment. Also, a microphone/ vibrational sensor that detects the sound coming from of their products like a chainsaw or a blower.

• With the temperature measurements, we can monitor the temperature of the motor, temperatures near the tool etc. A warning system based on this temperature measurement for overheating or a shutdown mechanism if it overheats also could be incorporated.
• A log of machine run time which monitors the number of hours the motor has operated, or the current running time of the motor without stopping could be incorporated for the following things:
  • To notify the user about tool replacement
  • To notify the user about servicing or lubrication
  • It could also display the remaining usage time based on the fuel left, or the charge on the battery left.
  • Fuel left, lubricant left etc.
• A microphone or a vibrational sensor along with a machine learning model which can detect the normal working sound of the motor. When the sound changes, it could indicate some sort of problem in the machine like poor lubrication, a problem with motor winding, worn bearing, or maybe a blown capacitor. Anyway, the point is to detect the anomaly in sound/vibrational patterns using machine learning and use it as a troubleshooter for the possible problem. (This would need lots of testing, and might be a little bit complex)

Monitoring this information and providing feedback to the user could be done in a display attached with the device. Or this could be done through an app. The latter approach needs less modification with the machinery, also it works well if you wish to use the machine learning technique as I mentioned above.

I wish you all the best for your project!