Motor Drive Development – Still innovative after 20 years!!

Recently our Commercial Partner (Ms Patricia Elliott B.Eng) was kindly given an item by the company she used to work for (Nidec SR Drives Ltd.).  It was the last product she worked on before she left to set up Smart Power Solutions with our Technical Partner (Dr. Charlie Elliott). It is a high-power commercial vacuum cleaner unit used in larger homes and hotels in the US.

In order to keep size down and allow for long-life, a high-speed 2-phase Switched Reluctance Motor was used. To minimise input current whilst keeping cost low, a valley-fill power-factor improvement circuit was used. The control was implemented in a sub $1 microcontroller. As far as we are aware, nobody else has ever implemented such an innovative motor drive for this application since. When it was powered up in our lab, it worked after being sat in storage for almost 20 years!!

SPS is very well positioned to carry out motor drive development on all conceivable motor types. It has experience from low power 20W fans all the way up to 1MW mining applications. You won’t be surprised to hear that SPS is heavily involved in electrification of transport projects for both on and off-road use.

Innovative Motor Drive