What makes infrastructure critical
Infrastructure is called critical when its failure harms people who had no part in running it. A stopped factory is a loss for its owner. A stopped water system is a problem for a city. The equipment involved is often familiar, including pumps, motors, blowers, generators and switchgear. What sets it apart is consequence.
These systems are also typically public or regulated, built to last for decades, distributed over wide areas and operated by lean teams. They are expected to perform with very high reliability on constrained budgets, using a great deal of equipment that has been in service for a long time.
The inspection gap
The traditional answer to reliability in critical infrastructure is redundancy and routine. Important equipment is duplicated. Standby units are tested on a schedule. Staff make inspection rounds. Assets are replaced at the end of a planned life.
This approach has a good record and some clear limits. Redundancy protects the service while concealing the decline of individual units. Periodic testing shows that a standby unit ran on the day of the test and says little about its condition a month later. Inspection rounds become harder to sustain as sites multiply and experienced staff retire. Replacement by age removes equipment that may have years of life left and leaves in place equipment that may not.
Continuous observation
AFFERENT's approach rests on three verbs.
Observe continuously
A device mounted on an asset is always present. It is designed to see the slow change that develops between inspections and the event that occurs at three in the morning at an unattended site.
Understand earlier
By learning the normal behavior of each asset and combining several kinds of signal, the system is designed to recognize a developing problem while there is still time to plan a response. Read about Machine Health Intelligence.
Act sooner
Earlier knowledge only matters if it reaches a person who can act. Findings are designed to be specific and prioritized, and to fit into the way maintenance is already organized.
Designed for the constraints
Critical infrastructure imposes requirements that a monitoring system must respect.
- Limited connectivity. Many sites are remote. Edge processing allows a device to do its work with a modest and intermittent link.
- Separation from control. Monitoring should never interfere with operation. NODE is designed to observe equipment without being part of the control path.
- Security. Operators are rightly cautious about new connected devices. Our security architecture is designed around that caution.
- Long service life. Equipment in this sector is expected to last. A monitoring platform should be built with the same horizon in mind.
An example: water and wastewater
A water utility shows the pattern clearly. Its service depends on pumps: at intakes, in treatment works, at booster stations spread across a network and at lift stations that move wastewater. Many of these sites are small, unattended and visited on a rota.
Pumps in this duty work hard. They handle fluids that carry grit and debris. They are subject to cavitation when suction conditions are poor, to blockage and ragging in wastewater service, and to bearing and seal wear over long running hours. Blowers in aeration plant and motors throughout are subject to the same mechanical and electrical faults as rotating machines anywhere.
When a station pump fails without warning, the consequence may be a loss of pressure, a flooding incident or a discharge to the environment. When a failing pump is identified weeks ahead, the consequence is a planned repair. The difference between those outcomes is information, and it is the kind of information a device mounted on the pump is designed to supply.
Resilience as knowledge
Resilience is usually discussed in terms of spare capacity. It also depends on information. An operator who knows the condition of each asset can decide what to maintain first, where a limited capital budget will do the most good and which sites carry the most risk. That knowledge is what AFFERENT is intended to provide.
