Abstract:In order to improve the availability and productivity of manufacturing systems, process monitoring has become an important matter in modern automated plants. The traditional monitoring technologies are based on single sensors and are insufficient, especially for manufacturing processes of highly complicated and automated systems. Instead, multi-sensor based technologies are developing rapidly and are widely used for such monitoring tasks. This paper introduces a multi-sensor based process monitoring system for an existing machining centre. The system can monitor the major manufacturing process faults or abnormalities of the machining centre and provide maintenance planning through measuring and analysing multiple sensor parameters such as power, vibration, temperature and pressure of spindle, feed axes, and hydraulic and pneumatic systems of the machining centre. The general structure of the monitoring system and the implementation of the main steps of the monitoring system development are presented in detail.