Advancing from Predictive Maintenance to Intelligent Maintenance with AI and IIoT

As Artificial Intelligent (AI) technology advances and increasingly large amounts of data become readily available via various Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) projects, we evaluate the state of the art of predictive maintenance approaches and propose our innovative framework to improve the current practice. The paper first reviews the evolution of reliability modelling technology in the past 90 years and discusses major technologies developed in industry and academia. We then introduce the next generation maintenance framework - Intelligent Maintenance, and discuss its key components. This AI and IIoT based Intelligent Maintenance framework is composed of (1) latest machine learning algorithms including probabilistic reliability modelling with deep learning, (2) real-time data collection, transfer, and storage through wireless smart sensors, (3) Big Data technologies, (4) continuously integration and deployment of machine learning models, (5) mobile device and AR/VR applications for fast and better decision-making in the field. Particularly, we proposed a novel probabilistic deep learning reliability modelling approach and demonstrate it in the Turbofan Engine Degradation Dataset.