Software as a service: The future of NDI data analysis in the cloud

The predictive or proactive maintenance of complex systems and infrastructure requires the capability to centralise all of the relevant information and perform a comprehensive analysis to derive insights for timely decision-making. Cloud computing services enable the development of a repository and the integration of online monitoring and offline non-destructive inspection (NDI) data for health condition assessment. NDI signal processing and data analysis can thus migrate to Cloud as a Service (CaaS). In this paper, the development of NDI software for data analytics is briefly reviewed and a case study involving a cloud-based solution is presented, which is cost effective and easy to implement. Cloud-based NDI data analysis comprises three basic steps: (1) transferring NDI data to a database in the cloud; (2) performing data analysis; and (3) presenting and delivering the results. In the case study, the ultrasonic C-scan data are processed in the Microsoft Azure cloud. The features of the ultrasonic data, such as maximum magnitude and time-of-flight (TOF), can be extracted and presented through a web-based service. The solution can be easily deployed to tablets and smartphones for the end-users to access.