NIST PHMC

The Prognostics, Health Management, and Control (PHMC) project is a NIST research effort that develops methods, protocols and tools for sensing, diagnostics, prognostics and control in manufacturing. It targets ISA 95 manufacturing levels 0 through 3 so that equipment and process data can support maintenance and control decisions. Work is organised into three research thrusts: machine tool linear axis diagnostics and prognostics, manufacturing process and equipment monitoring, and health and control management for robot systems.

Source checked2/2 values · 2026-10-25Methodology

Specification

1 source

Kind	methodology
Origin	NIST

Study notes

Scope spans ISA 95 manufacturing levels 0 (production process) through 3 (manufacturing operations management).
Three research thrusts: machine tool linear axes diagnostics and prognostics; manufacturing process and equipment monitoring; health and control management for robot systems.
Machine tool linear axes thrust uses a component-level test bed with a NIST-developed sensor suite to detect translational and angular changes due to axis degradation.
Robot systems thrust uses a work-cell-level test bed with industrial robotic arms and a range of sensing technologies, between the component-level and systems-level test beds.
Manufacturing process and equipment monitoring thrust uses a systems-level test bed of networked machine tools and sensors in an active manufacturing facility.
Initial standards research focuses on extending MTConnect across manufacturing equipment and systems.
Each thrust is to develop and validate reference data: reference datasets, use cases and test scenarios.
Initial robot thrust focus is monitoring and assessing degradation of tool center position accuracy of the robot arm.
Robot work-cell health scope includes arm, controller, sensors and end-effector and the relationships between these components.
Project page created March 12, 2014 and updated March 26, 2025.