Embedded temperature and vibration sensing system for monitoring ball screw preload

In this paper we present a developed sensing system for precisely measuring the acceleration and temperature of the interest point on the ball screw structure. Core sensors of MEMS-type accelerometer and SMD-type PT-100 are integrated into a circuit board (<; 1cm²) and then packaged as a sensor module. The developed sensing system, including the sensor module and signal processing unit has been applied to a designed preload-adjustable single-axis ball screw stage for experiment. The sensing module is embedded into the ball screw stage and attached to the ball nut for signal acquisition. With different ball screw preload settings, the temperature and vibration signals are synchronously obtained. Results show vibration spectrum of the signals obtained from the sensing system can effectively monitor the preload of ball screw. Also, different preload level related to temperature variation is studied.