Drives & Controls Magazine February 2023

n TECHNOLOGY February 2023 www.drivesncontrols.com 18 INFINITUM, THETEXAS-BASED developer of air- core motors with PCB stators, has announced a next-generation, axial-flux propulsion and traction motor that delivers high power and torque density and operates with“class- leading”efficiency over a wide range of speeds and load conditions to maximise vehicle ranges on or off road, on water, or in the air. The Aircore Mobility motor has been designed to power passenger and commercial electric vehicles, as well as aviation, marine, construction, agricultural machines and auxiliary applications. The motor replaces heavy, copper-wound iron stators with a lightweight PCB (printed circuit board) stator that is claimed to be ten times more reliable. Compared to conventional motors, it is 10%more efficient, 50% smaller and lighter, and uses 66% less copper. By replacing the iron core with a PCB stator, efficiency is increased, while mechanical losses, noise and vibration are reduced. The liquid-cooled motor is said to achieve up to 4-5 times the current density of conventional liquid-cooled motors. The coolant is in direct contact with the stator, removing heat across a big area, and allowing high overloads and long operating lives. “Our air-core motor topology eliminates core losses and delivers a broader range of speeds and load conditions where the motor can operate at high efficiency levels,”says Infinitum’s vice-president of technology, Paulo Guedes-Pinto. The motor can be produced using fewer rawmaterials than standard machines, while its modular design allows the housing, rotors, and stators to be re-used multiple times. It can be manufactured locally almost anywhere in the world, without complex equipment. The motor is protected by 32 issued and 44 pending patents. Infinitumwas founded in 2016 with a mission to disrupt the way electric machines consume and create energy. Its funding to date exceeds $165m and it has secured more than $900m of potential orders. In 2021, Rockwell Automation took an equity stake in Infinitum. Last year, the company announced plans to expand and automate assembly at a facility in Mexico to meet a“significant increase in demand”. https://goinfinitum.com p GammaTechnologies (GT), a US-based specialist in simulation software, is buying the Femag electromagnetic simulation software for electric machines from its Swiss developers ProFemag and Semafor Informatik and Energie . The finite-element-based software is used to study and optimise the performance, efficiency and noise-vibration effects of AC and DC motors. Combining it with GT-Suite will extend GT’s capabilities in the transport, energy and machinery sectors. GT is establishing a Global Center of Excellence for Electric Machines in Switzerland, to act as an innovation hub for r&d and the deployment of simulation technologies for electrical machines. www.gtisoft.com p A report on the market for smart machine vision systems that incorporate machine learning capabilities, predicts that annual shipments will reach almost 200 million by 2027, generating a market worth $35bn. The report, from ABI Research , envisages a shift frommachines that automate simple tasks to autonomous machines that can“see”to optimise their operation. www.abiresearch.com p A new report from IndustryARC predicts that the market for industrial applications of Raspberry Pi single-board computers will reach $385m by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 15.7% from 2021 to 2026. It attributes this expansion to growing demand for wireless networking devices, the adoption of Raspberry Pi-based industrial protocol products, and the penetration of IoT. Other factors driving the market include a shift towards IoT-based industrial automation as well as rising demand for smart or intelligent warehousing and inventory management services. www.industryarc.com p The Swedish electric boat developer Candela has announced that, following an agreement with the EV-maker Polestar , it is launching a hydrofoil boat with a range of up to 57 nautical miles (105km) and a cruising speed of 22 knots (40.7km/h) – up to three times better than other electric boats. The Candela C-8 vessel is using Polestar’s 69kWh battery pack and DC charging technology. p Idec in the US has announced that due to the global chip shortage, it has been struggling to find enough electronic components for some of its products and is therefore discontinuing them. The products affected are some of its less popular FT1A SmartAxis controllers as well as its LF1D-H and LF1D-J series Lumifa LED lights. https://us.idec.com p National Instruments has announced an enterprise version of its SystemLink software. By standardising the way data is shared and analysed, the software enables increased visibility and control of test systems across an organisation. It serves as a bridge between engineering and manufacturing departments to help improve operational efficiencies and drive digital transformation. The software is NI’s first hardware- agnostic systems and data management tool. www.ni.com TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS PCB-stator motor offers ‘class-leading’ efficiency Infinitum’s Aircore mobility motor uses a liquid- cooling technique that removes heat across a large surface area, allowing high overloads ARDUINO, THEOPEN-SOURCE hardware and software microcontroller developer, has announced its first industrial micro-PLC with industrial IoT capabilities. The Opta controller has been developed in collaboration with the industrial component manufacturer Finder and is aimed at PLC engineers, offering them a scalable architecture based on a secure, high- performance, open-source platform that does not lock them into particular vendors. The PLC supports LD (ladder) and FBD (function block) programming languages. Arduino says that the Opta’s onboard connectivity and machine learning capabilities will open up new opportunities for industrial automation at a relatively low cost. The PLC’s dual-core Cortex M7 processor is powerful enough for real-time operations and predictive maintenance. It can be combined with load cells or vision systems to manage flows on production lines. The Opta will be available in three variants, with prices starting from €120: n the Opta Lite, with onboard Ethernet and USB-C programming ports; n the Opta RS-485, which adds an RS-485 half-duplex interface; and n the OptaWi-Fi, which addsWi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy links. All models support over-the-air updates and offer data security from the hardware to the cloud. Four relays can each switch loads of up to 2.3kW. www.arduino.cc Arduino releases its first micro-PLC