Multivariate, Automatic Diagnostics Based on Insights into Sensor Technology

With the rapid development of smart sensor technology and the Internet of things, ensuring data accuracy and system reliability is paramount. As the number of sensors increases with demand for high-resolution, high-quality input to decision-making systems, models and digital twins, manual quality control of sensor data is no longer an option. In this paper, we leverage insights into sensor technology, environmental dynamics and the correlation between data from different sensors for automatic diagnostics of a sensor node. We propose a method for combining results of automatic quality control of individual sensors with tests for detecting simultaneous anomalies across sensors. Building on both sensor and application knowledge, we develop a diagnostic logic that can automatically explain and diagnose instead of just labeling the individual sensor data as “good” or “bad”. This approach enables us to provide diagnostics that offer a deeper understanding of the data and their quality and of the health and reliability of the measurement system. Our algorithms are adapted for real time and in situ operation on the sensor node. We demonstrate the diagnostic power of the algorithms on high-resolution measurements of temperature and conductivity from the OBSEA observatory about 50 km south of Barcelona, Spain.