0333 090 7822 TECHNOLOGY n 27 www.drivesncontrols.com July/August 2026 QPT, THE UK COMPANY that has developed what it claims is the first world's first 1MHz motor-drive using GaN (gallium nitride) technology, has enhanced the system further to offer full field-oriented control (FOC) and real-time dynamic cogging correction. In August 2025, QPT announced its MicroDyno platform which has a 1MHz hardswitched sinewave drive – 100 times faster than the switching frequencies of around 10kHz that have defined motor drives for the past two decades. It says that the new update closes the loop between the high-frequency hardware and application-level performance that machine automation, robotics and precision drive users need. Field-oriented control decouples torque and flux mathematically to enable direct, precise torque regulation. But running FOC at conventional 10kHz switching frequencies imposes a limit on control-loop responsiveness. QPT claims that MicroDyno is the first platform to run FOC natively at 1MHz, with control-loop updates happening around 100 times faster than normal. That bandwidth headroom unlocks one of the platform’s most significant new capabilities: dynamic cogging correction. The platform’s ultra-high signal-to-noise ratio allows it to measure torque cogging within the drive – what QPT calls "sensing without sensors” – because an internal system called qSense can determine everything inside the drive without costly external sensors. Torque cogging is corrected in real time inside the drive without needing look-up tables. QPT says its system is easy to set up with any motor and does not suffer from drift over time. The result is precise control of low-cost motors that would usually need precision servomotors paired with high-resolution encoders – a hardware combination that typically costs £500–£1,000. In addition, QPTs new software generates a digital twin of the system, allowing offline training of edge AI systems that can detect and classify any mechanical and electrical issues, reporting and potentially correcting them dynamically – again without needing external sensors. QPT is offering demonstrations of its enhanced MicroDyno platform to potential customers at a new R&D facility in Edinburgh, Scotland, allowing them to interact with the system in real time. "When we launched MicroDyno last August, we showed that GaN can switch at 1MHz in a working motor drive,” says QPT’s founder and CTO, Rob Gwynne. “What we’re showing now are examples of the core benefits that this step-change actually delivers. Running at 1MHz isn’t just faster – it changes what's possible at the control layer. “Dynamic cogging correction without lookup tables removes a pain point that the motor-drive industry has had to cope with for decades, and our demonstration shows how we can use it to achieve very high precision with a low-cost motor.” "The industrial motor drive industry hasn't seen a step-change in underlying hardware performance in 20 years,”comments Simon Hart, former chief technology innovation officer at the UK axial motor developer, Yasa. “What QPT has done with MicroDyno is to prove, at the application level – not just the device level – that 1MHz GaN, combined with modern control algorithms, can deliver the kind of precision that has historically been the preserve of expensive servo systems. For collaborative robotics and machine automation OEMs, in particular, this fundamentally changes the billof-materials economics.” Cambridge-headquartered QPT is aiming its GaN technology at three multi-billion-dollar markets: industrial motor-drives; data centre power supplies; and GPU/CPU thermal management. The company operates on a fabless semiconductor and IP-licensing model. www.q-p-t.com/microdyno First 1MHz GaN motordrive adds dynamic cogging correction without sensors Dynamic adaptive cogging correction in a permanent-magnet synchronous motor: harmonic ripple is suppressed to near-zero (the blue trace is the rotor electrical angle, and the white trace is the estimated shaft torque). FOR MORE TECHNOLOGY NEWS VISIT www.drivesncontrols.com
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