30 n COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING June 2026 www.drivesncontrols.com Contactless power and data transmission delivers wear-free connections Flexible and highly reliable connections are essential in industrial applications, such as those used in robot tools and rotating devices like precision indexing tables. These systems experience high movement and rotation and are often exposed to dirt and vibration that can cause conventional connectors or sliprings to fail. Designers need new options to overcome the limitations of conventional technologies in these and other challenging applications. These must be able to support secure duplex Ethernet connections up to 100 Mbps and transfer up to 50W of power for sensors and other components over gaps of up to 12mm. Operation in harsh industrial settings requires an IP65 environmental rating, and any new technology must meet IK06 (in accordance with EN 62262), indicating that it can withstand external mechanical impacts with an energy of up to 1 Joule. Simple installation or replacement can reduce maintenance costs and downtime. Frequent tool changes for robots used in automated assembly processes can present significant challenges for connectors. These tool changes can require hundreds of mating/unmating cycles every day. Each cycle exposes the contacts to contaminants and causes wear due to contact friction. If the connectors are not precisely aligned, contacts can get bent. The result is reduced connector reliability and unpredictable downtime for maintenance. In addition to connectors for tool attachment, some robots use sliprings to transmit data and power in rotating arms and joints. Slipring limitations Sliprings can also be found in food and pharmaceutical processing and packaging lines, as well as other industrial processes and wind turbines. Like conventional connectors, they can be damaged by exposure to contaminants and can experience excessive mechanical wear. Sliprings can become hot due to friction and may need attention to thermal management. In some applications, sliprings can be subjected to strong vibrations or sudden impacts that can result in damage, cause unstable contact pressure, or even mechanical failure. Both conventional connectors and sliprings can create machine design challenges related to size and movement constraints, as well as access requirements for maintenance. This adds to the numerous application challenges, including intermittent connections caused by vibration, dust, dirt, and contact wear, among others. Using “better” connectors may offer an opportunity for incremental improvement in performance or reliability. But what’s really needed is an out-of-the-box approach that eliminates the most vexing connector challenges. The NearFi technology, developed by Phoenix Contact, fits that bill. NearFi is a non-contact technology that supports wear-free and reliable communications and power delivery across an air gap of a few centimetres or through non-metallic materials, such as plastic, glass and wood. When transmitting only data, NearFi can connect across an air gap of 40mm. Power, or combined power and data transmissions, can connect across air gaps of 12mm. The technology uses a 60GHz wireless system to transmit data, and inductive coupling to deliver power from a base coupler to a remote coupler. These couplers have housings rated at IP65 and IK06, along with M12 connections, ensuring wear-free and maintenance-free operation in Conventional connectors and sliprings have limitations in some industrial applications. A contactless data and power transmission technology can overcome these, allowing data at up to 100Mbit/s, as well as 50W of power, to be transmitted across short gaps. DigiKey applications engineer, Rolf Horn, explains how. How NearFi can be used in a robot tool-changing station Images: Phoenix Contact
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