n TECHNOLOGY February 2025 www.drivesncontrols.com 16 DONUT LABS, THE FINNISH drive system developer, has revealed more details of its range of doughnut-shaped electric motors and associated technologies at the CES 2025 exhibition in Las Vegas. It unveiled a family of ve motors, ranging from a 120mm-diameter device weighing 1.5kg which is capable of delivering 3kW of peak power and 20Nm of peak torque, to a 21”-diameter 630kW machine weighing 40kg that can deliver 4.3kNm of peak torque. The motors – rst announced late last year after several years of stealth development – are aimed principally at transport applications from drones to trucks, but could also have non-automotive applications such as powering robots. Donut Lab’s CEO Marko Lehtimäki claims that the motors are “the best electric motor in the world by any parameter”. They oer “incredible performance not available with any other technology,” he adds, and will deliver the highest power and torque characteristics both per kilogram, and per dollar. Unlike other technologies, that are optimised for either for power or torque, the Donut machines are designed to excel at both. “It’s a really magical piece of technology,” he says. Donut Lab’s modular platform consists of a suite of compatible components, such as battery packs and vehicle computers, as well as the motors. These components are designed to work together without any manual integration, simplifying and accelerating the development of applications. AT CES, Donut Lab announced a partnership with the Finnish software company Qt, which has a “game-changer”application for automating and streamlining the development of vehicle HMIs. Called Qt Accelerate, the application will soon be integrated into the Donut platform. It will automatically recognise vehicle con gurations and create HMIs that match the vehicle's features. "Qt Accelerate oers an extremely fast and ecient way to create HMIs fully automatically without programming and is designed speci cally for the needs of the automotive industry,” says Lehtimäki. “Our collaboration provides signi cant advantages to the development of vehicles, and it is also the rst step in building a broader ecosystem for the Donut platform.” Donut is aiming to speed up the development of its software 10-fold, while enhancing vehicle testing and safety. It says it is developing the world's rst no-code environment for vehicles, which means that, in the future, all software logic for cars and drones can be done via a graphical user interface, instead of writing traditional code. This will cut the number of errors, increase safety and accelerate development work, the company says. “Although the physical components of the Donut platform, such as the motor and battery pack, are already revolutionising the automotive industry, a completely new software layer has also been part of the plan from the very beginning,” Lehtimäki explains. “With the help of an intelligent software layer, we can automatically integrate physical components, but in addition to this, we are now developing future software development solutions that will make vehicle development signi cantly more ecient and agile. At the core of all of this is advanced AI, and in the future, the AI features of the Donut platform will improve vehicle design, development, testing and validation in unimaginable ways.” Donut has compared its technology with the conventional way of designing and building electric vehicles, and claims that for a compact SUV, it needs 75% fewer components, eliminating almost 120 parts. It can save up to eight hours of assembly time per vehicle, cut the vehicle’s weight by 85kg, and achieve a materials cost saving of €2,000. For a truck, the weight saving could be 1,100kg, with the BOM being cut by €15,000. Lehtimäki predicts that the new family of motors “will change the way we build EVs”. www.donutlab.com p A virtual safety control system developed by Codesys has passed its technical release process and is awaiting certi cation for SIL3 applications by TÜV Süd. Called Virtual Safe Control SL, it will operate independently of special hardware. The system has already passed numerous integration tests and risk analyses. As soon as TÜV issues its certi cate, Audi plans to be the rst user to integrate the virtual safety PLC into car body production lines and serial production. This is expected to happen by mid-2025. www.codesys.com pABB has redesigned its Baldor-Reliance Food Safe stainless-steel Nema motors so that they now have three leads rather than the previous nine. It says the change will simplify installation, enhance reliability and improve workplace safety – while integrating with existing 460V systems. The three-lead design cuts installation times and reduces the risk of connection errors, resulting in fewer interruptions, thus boosting productivity, while lowering maintenance costs. The ninelead con guration will continue to be available for variable-speed drive operation and more complex electrical systems. https://new.abb.com/motors-generators pNiron Magnetics, the US developer of high-performance, rare-earth-free permanent magnets, has been awarded a $52.2m tax credit to advance the construction of the world’s rst manufacturing facility for these magnets in Minnesota – an important step in the commercialisation of the technology. The magnets, made from iron nitride could help meet the increasing demand for permanent magnets, while also providing supply chain security. The 17,650m2 facility will create 175 jobs and reduce the US reliance on imported materials. The iron nitride-based magnets could be manufactured globally from abundant, stable local supplies. pBeckho has announced an industrial server containing two 5th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, with up to 32 cores per CPU, and 128–1024GB of DDR5 RAM. It says that the C6670-0020 server will be ideal for machine controls for its XPlanar planar motor system. The industrial server is initially available in six CPU versions including Xeon Silver 4510 and Gold 6530 processors. The servers can be tted next to other control cabinet devices. www.beckho.com pDelta Electronics’ agship D-Bot cobots (collaborative robots) can now integrate with Nvidia’s Omniverse platform, allowing realtime, physically accurate simulations that enhance the development, testing and deployment of advanced robotic applications. By reducing the need for physical prototypes and development costs, companies can shorten time-to-market, improve product reliability and accelerate innovation, Delta says. The photorealistic rendering and AIpowered physics can be used for complex simulations before real-world deployment, reducing risks and improving performance. TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS Donut Labs claims that its doughnut-shaped motors will out-perform other technologies Donut motors are ‘the best in the world by any parameter’
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