Festo has launched artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled monitoring and predictive maintenance system Festo AX Motion Insights Pneumatic. 

AX Motion Insights Pneumatic aims to prevent costly unscheduled machine downtime through its monitoring of pneumatic cylinders for wear and anomalies. This AI-based industrial app ensures operations are more reliable, efficient, and ultimately more profitable.

The system uses AI to detect anomalies in the behavior of pneumatic drives and cylinders without the need for additional sensors. It provides a “health score” as a “risk of failure” indicator for each cylinder. Connectivity is achieved via a PLC function block. The system is compatible with actuators from different manufacturers and has specific connectivity details for Siemens, Rockwell and Beckhoff controllers. 

Motion Insights Pneumatic enables maintenance teams to schedule tasks in advance, reducing the risk of unexpected downtime. The platform offers on-premises computing, giving end users full control over their data and deployment. This is an open system and works with both Festo and third-party components. 

Motion Insights Pneumatic works in tandem with Smartenance. The insights app identifies when maintenance is needed and Smartenance manages the resulting tasks. The integration of the two creates a cohesive, end-to-end workflow that ensures predictive insights are not just seen but also efficiently acted upon.

Motion Insights Pneumatic is easy to set up and use. The “plug-and-play” aspect of this app, combined with its user-friendly interface and standardized AI models, makes the technology more accessible than otherwise possible.

Festo AX Motion Insights Pneumatic joins the Festo AX Motion Insights Electric app, which focuses on electric components, and Festo AX Data Access, which makes operation technology (OT) data available for information technology (IT) analysis. These apps can be used singly or in combination.

 The apps can be deployed on-premises using standard hardware and container technology such as Docker. Containerization allows the apps to be deployed flexibly on various computing environments, including industrial PCs, virtual machines, servers and edge devices. Insights Electric and Pneumatic are purchased on a subscription basis, while “time-limited” options (3 and 5 years) will be released at the end of 2025. Data Access is purchased under a perpetual license.

Through Festo App World, customers can select a license package based on the number of cylinders they want to monitor.