Magnetics 2010 and Motion, Drive & Automation

There is a small industry conference that takes place every year with a lineup of industry experts that is top notch by any standard.  It’s called the Motion, Drive and Automation Conference put on by E-Drive magazine.  This year it is located at the Disney Hilton Resort in Orlando and is taking place on January 28 & 29.   The conference includes a wide range of industry experts from many fields of advanced electric motor design, advanced motor control concepts, power semiconductors and state of the art motor testing system.  There will be a lot of technical and product presentations that showcase leading edge technology in electric motors, precision gear reducers, new technology for motion sensing, and a number of improved power semiconductor devices for the motor control industry.  This is a great place to get up to date on the latest technology that will impact of motor and control technology across many industries over the next few years.

In addition, the Magnetics 2010 Conference will be running concurrently at the same venue.  Magnets are a strategic material without which many motors would simply not operate.  In the ever-changing motor industry, there is always a new design that seeks to make an enhancement over previous solutions, or introduce a new solution to old problems.  Declining prices for Neodymium Iron Boron magnets over the last few years have created a number of novel design shifts which have been instrumental in bringing more varieties of permanent magnet machines into the forefront of motion control and mechatronic technology.  To the point where over the last two years a resurgance of permanent magnet rotor designs have been created to improve the energy denisty and lower the cost of specialty motors in washing machines and air conditioning compressors.

This last development, combined with the forecast increase of hybrid electric car sales coming this year, are expected to increase the sale of permanent magnets by 10-15 percent by 2011.  That’s a staggering jump in a market that is almost exclusively supplied by China.  And there is no assurance that China can meet the forecast production.

The US Department of Commerce usually has a say in the sale of products or businesses to foreign countries that are deemed to be strategic or sensitive technology.  In fact, I got stuck in a situation where my employer was told specifically that we could not sell a CNC controller to a Korean customer.  That’s pretty small potatoes compared to controlling the supply of permanent magnets which influences billions of dollars worth of electric motors manufactured and sold all over the world.  So it strikes me as a little odd that the sale of Magnequench to its current owners, Neo Materials, was completed without a much discussion. leaving the US without a domestic magnet supplier.

There will surely be a lot of discussion about this situation at the conference, and I will be in attendance to get the latest information on the subject.  So look forward to a review of the conference in an upcoming post.

Inventing Industry in the (near) Future

The future of the US economy, and our future as an industrial power will be the result of our cumulative creativity.  New industries will be the result of new ideas, new technologies, new thinking.  It’s gratifying to see programs like the First Robotic Competition getting 215,000 junior high school and high school students exposed to and involved in robotics.  Problem solving, finding solutions, getting their creativity flowing to make a box of parts into a working machine with real world performance.  It will be even more interesting to see what those same kids will be into 5 to 10 years from now as they begin their careers in the many technology pursuits they are likely to follow.

Technology is a major driving force in the economy.  The ability to create whole new industries that have never existed before.

And there is a second driving force, sometimes made less obvious by the flash of the latest technical breakthrough.  Cost.  What is the relationship of cost to the development of industry?  As costs decline volume goes up.  Steel manufacturing per man year of labor increased 500% during a period of intense competition between the US and Japan.  And interestingly, one of the breakthroughs was the creation of the “mini-mill” which could produce specialty steels more cost effectively by making them in smaller batches.  Sometimes the solution is counter intuitive.  The steel industry was all about increasing batch size.  But serving the market with more complex products turned out to be easier with smaller batches, ultimately increasing overall sales and defending the US market to some extent from foreign competition.

Are there other cases where innovation was economically driven?  In the machine tool world the majority of manufacturers develop bigger and more complex machines so that a single machine can handle any operation.  This complexity tends to drive costs up quickly.  So the tendency is to find high performance machine tools costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.  In contrast, the HAAS company re-invented the machine tool business by focusing on making a low cost, high quality machine tool that many shops could afford to buy.  They were one of the first companies to have several models of machine tool in the $50K range.

They did it by concentrating on the economics of a machine tool that was profitable in operation.  That means a machine with a low cost to purchase, low operating and maintenance costs, and sufficient precision to meet the requirements of most operations.   In order to reduce their machine cost they had to develop their own controls platform.  They restructured everything in the design and manufacture of the CNC system to meet the cost objective.

In act, they are so successful, that HAAS is the largest CNC company in the western world.

Many similar situations exist in other industries.  In small plastic parts manufacturing there are a number of breakthroughs that have created lower cost parts in smaller batches based on innovative new tooling systems.  In metal fabrication there are new process like thixotropic molding and metal injection molding that have been developed to lower the cost of metal goods by making parts at lower costs.  These solutions are focused on reducing costs and other barriers to the entre of new products like tooling costs and minimum batch sizes.  And they represent major new markets that were not possible in the past, because they are focused on the economics of the industry they serve.  Decreasing the cost of entry and the cost of part manufacturing opens up new markets

So inventing the future can be technology.  Or as it can be economics.   It’s all innovation.  And it’s all about delivering value.

Magnets aren’t US anymore

The permanent magnetic is a quiet, unobtrusive work horse in so many applications that it, like many things that are mechatronics related, is mind bogglingly (is that a word?) pervasive.  Magnets are the key material technology to enable high efficiency and power dense electric motors.  And electric motors are everywhere.

The particular magentic material that has enabled the CD, DVD, Hard Disk Drive, high performance speakers, magnetic resonance imaging and many other technical wonders, is Neodymium Iron Boron.  Based on General Motors research on magnet materials (in the 1980’s), scientists found a particular molecule of these materials which exhibited extremely high magnetic strength.  And, of course, one of the immediate benefits would be reducing the size of starter motors in cars by 30% and the weight of the motors by even more.  Great stuff!

But making the molecule wasn’t exactly a picnic.  Alloying was easy, but it turned out you had to cool the material down suddenly in order to get just the right molecule to form in a powder and then sinter and magnetize the result.  A whole new process had to be developed, called spin casting, to cool the material quickly enough to generate high quality raw material for NeFeB magnets.   I’m sure there are a lot more technical details, but I don’t remember much from my tour of the GM Magnequench facility in Indiana.  It’s been several years.

NeFeB alloy has been dramatically improved and as demand has increased, fortunately, the price has dropped from the extremely high levels during it’s introduction.  As prices have declined it is estimated that 16,571 tons of Neodymium were used in magnet making in 2009 and 24,635 tons will be used by the year 2014.  That’s an increase of 48% in five years.  That’s huge.

The reason for all the increase is the fact that NeFeB magnets make really efficient motors.  So the new generation of appliance motors and air conditioning compressort that include NeFeB magnetics to increase the flux of the rotor combined with electric and hybrid car motors are driving demand more more magnets.  And now some emerging technology in the wind power marketplace, direct drive generators, will require many tons of additional material.

But what about our friends at GM Magnequench?  They’re gone!  The great future, full of potential for a US manufacturing company, lost to the sale of the company and closing the manufacturing facility.  GM sold the company to New Materials Technology in Toronto which is owned by China.  But the new owners couldn’t run the US factory at a profit.  Even at $20/hour for labor.  All the manufacturing jobs, gone.

There is currently no NeFeB magnet manufacturing in the US.  Which is kind of crazy when you think of all the applications we have for the stuff.  Even worse is the fact that a lot of advanced military hardware is dependent upon the magnets for guidance motors on missiles and a host of other applications.  And according to one source China now owns 97% of the world’s Rare Earth Elements sources.    Which is why there are now hundreds of companies in China selling magnets.

On the positive side, this has lead to overall declining prices for these magnets.  But will that continue to be the case?  The Chinese government is expecting to decrease their exports of magnets by 34% next year.  This could spell trouble for many companies.

But there is hope. The USGS has reported that the Mountain Pass Mine in Southern California is one of the largest and richest deposits of Rare Earths, including Neodymium, in the world.  And Molycorp is ramping up to fill the gap with new mining and manufacturing capacity.  Go get ‘em guys! Free enterprise at work.

Electric Vehicles and Electric Motors

A friend of mine finally got delivery of a Tesla Roadster.  This prompted discussion of the drive train and the fact that Tesla has had to go from two speed transmissions which were failing to a transmissionless drive train.  The ultimate mechatronic challenge, the electric car, is also a challenger in terms of the precise  application of electric motor technology.

But it has to be said that the motor and drive solution for the electric car is not where the problem has to be solved.  Any motor can be made to run an electric car.  What is critical is how you apply it.  The starting conditions require high torque at low speed and the running conditions require low torque at high speed.  So, typically, what looks like a small 5 to 15 horsepower running requirement at full speed, becomes a 150 horsepower starting requirement depending on how quickly you would like to start.  If you want to keep up with a Corvette, it uses 450 HP to start.

And this produces a lot of confusion.  Why not use at 2 speed transmission to help the situation.  Fine, but the ones that are available can’t handle the dynamic response of the electric motor.

Can electronics help this situation?  Interestingly, yes.  There is a control algorithm generally called vector control which allows you to manage the rotor torque and stator torque separately.  By varying the phase angle between the two, like advancing and retarding the timing of a mechanical distributor cap on an internal combustion engine, you get different speed torque curves out of the motor.  COOL!  Is there any downside to this?

Yes.  You need more current to produce more torque.  That doesn’t change.  So you have to be able to supply the current, and you have to be able to manage the heat.  The heat is transitory since you only need the high current during starting, but it is best to have sophisticated software running to keep track of the RMS temperature of the motor.  Lower operating temperatures mean longer life and reduced risk of demagnetizing the motor.

So, yes, you can run an electric car with a garden variety AC motor, and with good electronics, you can make it run fairly efficiently.  With higher efficiency motors, the benefit is increased driving range from a given power source.  High efficiency motors are frequently smaller and lighter weigh, but a weight savings in the motor of 50 or even 100 pounds is not that big a factor in the driving range when the curb weight of the vehicle is 3000 pounds.

Basically, its F=ma.  If you can reduce the mass of the vehicle, you reduce the battery payload required to power the car.  Aluminum space frames, like on the Prowler, have been studied by the car industry and can reduce curb weight by 400 pounds and reduce cost by 10% at the same time.  We need to bring all the mechatronic leverage to the situation that we can, if we are going to make electric cars that make sense.  Before its too late for Detroit.

Mechatronics on the Trail of Global Warming

By Donna Sandfox

Omron Electronic Components, LLC

A new highly portable mechatronic system to measure harmful pollutant relies significantly on a MEMS flow sensor

Figure 1. Stationary Aethalometers are used throughout the world, but have been too heavy to be truly portable until now.

Carbon dioxide is well known as a major contributor to global warming, and there are many ways to detect and measure it. But it is not the only culprit. Scientist have found that the second most significant contributor is soot, or black carbon. Not only does black carbon contribute to environmental degradation, but these tiny particles also cut short the lives of seniors and sicken children. A recent economic impact study in California’s San Joaquin Valley (The Benefits of Meeting Federal Clean Air Standards in the South Coast and San Joaquin Valley Air Basins, November 2008) has identified the cost of air pollution and estimated it at more than $1,600 per person per year.

Black carbon doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, so controlling it has the potential to achieve major benefits in the short -term. Some of the major emitters of black carbon are diesel engines plus wood- and coal- burning fires. However, to analytically determine the source of black carbon and recommend effective changes to correct the problem, scientists require instruments capable of measuring black carbon in the field.

Manufactured by Magee Scientific of Berkeley, CA, the Aethalometer, is an instrument that uses optical analysis to determine the mass concentration of black- carbon particles collected from an air stream passing through a filter. However, until recently, these instruments were too large and bulky to be easily moved to a suspected point of origination for black carbon; the smallest device (the AE42) weighed approximately 25 lbs and measured 11 x 12 x 8 in. The instruments collect data from installations located around the world (Figure 1), but these only give scientists local samplings.

To get a complete picture of the black-carbon problem, scientists required a very small portable Aethalometer to easily determine black- carbon readings in almost any location. A reduction in size required some clever engineering and component sourcing.

Figure 2. The AE51 Aethalometer’s designers took advantage of the flow sensor’s port placement by designing the manifold to interface to them directly without tubing.

Aethalometer operation

Aethalometers function by measuring the amount of particulate deposited on a fiber filter by a specific amount of air passing through the filter for a predetermined amount of time. This mechatronic system needed to incorporate mechanics, electronics, and computing in one compact package. One of the major size reduction obstacles to overcome was finding a small, lightweight, highly accurate flow sensor with low power consumption. Having worked with Omron in the past, the engineers from Magee Scientific again called on Omron for a solution to their requirements, and the company recommended its D6F-P MEMS mass flow sensor for gathering the required air samples.

Figure 3. D6F-P flow sensors are individually calibrated before shipping to deliver excellent repeatability results.

Size and power constraints

The body of the D6F-P measures just 10 mm high by 23.3 mm wide by 27.2 mm deep, and with a weight of just 8.4 grams, it fell within the size and weight restraints set forth by Magee. Designed for easy installation, the D6F-P has both the input and output ports on the same side which facilitates the connection of tubing.

Magee engineers made clever use of this feature, designing their new AE51 Aethalometer so that the sensor ports would mate directly to their manifold, without the need for tubing (Figure 2). Since this miniature Aethalometer was to be battery powered, current consumption was a concern. The D6F-P proved to be very efficient, drawing a maximum of only 15 mA while operating on 5 Vdc.

Accuracy and repeatability

The AE51 relies on calculating the exact amount of air, driven by a blower incorporated in the device for a given time. Therefore the flow sensor would have to be very accurate. The D6F-P’s flow range/ pressure range of +1.0SLM (+0.84 in H2O) with an accuracy of ±5% F.S. maximum and ±2% F.S.

typical would deliver the precise flow readings Magee required to obtain reliable measurements.

Additionally, since the sensors are individually pre-calibrated at the factory for high repeatability, Magee Scientific’s finished device adjustment and test time was kept to a minimum (Figure.3). Durability was also a concern since the AE51 would have to take multiple readings, but the sensor’s MEMS technology has been proven to deliver a long life with excellent repeatability.

Figure 4. A patented dust segregation system with dual centrifugal separators ensures that the sensing chip remains clean.

In the real world

Since the AE51 is designed to measure black- carbon particulate in areas of known high concentration rates, the sensor had to be reliable in these dirty, real- world environments. Measurements would need to be taken at busy traffic intersections, bus stops, industrial sites, and coal-burning power plants.

The AE51 would also be used in remote areas of the world where use of wood fires to cook and heat is common. Although the filter used to measure the density of the black carbon is in front of the sensor’s inlet, if any particles that got past were to effect sensor operation, measurement accuracy would be compromised.

Figure 5. The reduced size of the hand-held AE51 is obvious when compared to the rack mount AE22 Aethalometer behind it.

To prevent that occurrence, the D6F-P design uses a patented dust segregation system (DSS). The DSS in the flow path incorporates dual centrifugal chambers, in which particulate matter follows in the outer path away from the MEMS sensor chip regardless of the flow direction. Thus there is practically no degradation in sensor performance over the lifetime of the system.

Keeping the MEMS sensor chip clean lets Magee guarantee a long life for their Aethalometer without worry about black-carbon build- up harming the device’s performance (Figure 4).

The A51 Aethalometer (Figure 5) is so small that it can be strapped to a user’s belt, enabling the user to become the instrument’s legs and freeing the user to do other work while the meter is gathering information. It can also be tethered to weather balloons for upper atmosphere readings. Another potential application would allow the device to be carried by those whose health might be affected most by inhaling large amounts of black carbon. The AE51 would alert them to areas that have high concentrations of this toxic material.

Omron Electronic Components, LLC

www.components.omron.com

Megatronics’ Inevitability

By Richard Comerford,
Editor
Electronic Products

In the beginning of September, a press release came to my e-mail inbox that really caught my attention. Considering the facts that (1) I get hundreds of e-mails every day, (2) most are about a “new product that is the [first, smallest, fastest, least expensive, most powerful] of its kind”, and (3) I’ve been in the tech journalism business since Ben Franklin started flying kites, it takes something pretty unusual to stop me in my tracks.

The release was from a company called Vector Fields, a part of Cobham plc based in Aurora, IL, and it was announcing the release of design tools to help RF designers exploit the properties of metamaterials. The tools are part of its work for the Advanced Materials for Ubiquitous

Leading-edge Electromagnetic Technologies (AMULET) research project, which is a three-year £3.4m collaborative R&D project funded in part by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board. The project is led by a consortium consisting of Vector Fields, Cobham’s ERA Technology, the National Physical Laboratory, and Queen Mary University of London.

Metamaterials are a fairly recent class of engineered materials that were first conceived at the end of the last millennium by Rodger M. Walser of the University of Texas at Austin. He defined metamaterials as: “Macroscopic composites having a manmade, three-dimensional, periodic cellular architecture designed to produce an optimized combination, not available in nature, of two or more responses to specific excitation.” Recently, there has been theoretical discussions about developing cloaking materials that can bend light around objects to make them invisible.

Obviously, such materials could have a significant impact on warfare and armaments, and so the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been funding development since 2001. DARPA says it has completed this project, but given the nature of the agency’s activities, details are hard to come by.

Getting back to AMULET, Vector Fields’ role in program is to provide antenna developers with enhanced design tools to simulate metamaterial structures. The first phase of this support is currently being released to the market in the new version of the high-frequency electromagnetic design tool, Concerto. One of the key problems addressed by this software, according to it’s developers, is the need for efficient and fast simulation. Concerto handles this by exploiting the periodic nature of passive metamaterial structures to minimize the computations required. The AMULET project will also be exploring the use of active metamaterials, and Vector Fields intends to add modeling support for these in future developments.

There were several things about the announcement that made me take note. First of all, this was about the practical application of metamaterial to engineering problems not of a military nature, but of key commercial importance to everyone involved with wireless technology. Further, the tools are not just for a few researchers working on stealth projects, but for anyone who would like to get involved with this game-changing technology.

And there is no doubt that metamaterials are game changing. The properties of metamaterials are directly dependent on both their physical parameters and their electrical characteristics, and designs based on such materials must take both physical and electrical properties into account simultaneously if it is to be done at a practical pace. The fact that tools are being developed as part of the AMULET project is a clear indication that traditional approaches will not succeed with this
new technology.

If these new materials and tools create the revolution in design that I believe they will, it will certainly mean that we cannot go forward without mechatronics. It will become impossible to create a competitive product without simultaneously engineering its mechanical, physical, and electrical attributes. What’s particularly encouraging is the fact that those working in the field seem to realize that tools must come first, so as to allow designers to completely explore possibilities quickly and thoroughly, and thereby avoid most of the trial and error approach which has hampered development in the past.

Materials and Mechatronics

A great scientist recently said that most of the new innovations in coming years would be in the materials science world.  (Sorry I can’t remember the reference, or I would gladly give credit…)  Seems like he may prove to be right.

Organic LED materials and processes show the potential to replace the mainstream display technologies.  Which is pretty impressive given the multi-billion dollar size of market for displays these days. Read more