SBIR Phase I: An innovative calibration software to suppress torque ripple and improve performance of electric motors.

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是通过开发一个软件解决方案来解决固有的电动机硬件问题，从而改善市场。廉价的无刷直流（BLDC）电机具有电磁缺陷，限制了其在工业和服务机器人应用中的应用。这些行业需要精确的定位、先进的轨迹控制和平稳的运行，这就需要高端电机，使用高质量的材料和复杂的硬件设计来最大限度地减少电磁缺陷。不幸的是，这增加了生产成本，使得它们对于许多应用来说过于昂贵。提出的解决方案将使电动机非常精确，高效，易于控制，同时保持低制造成本。低成本硬件和性能增强型校准软件的结合将为广泛的行业带来高端电机性能，这些行业可能能够提高其设备的性能，同时节省高达90%的电机成本。第一个目标将是机器人市场，预计到2025年将达到1580亿美元，特别是无人机和工业领域，许多制造商必须平衡成本和性能。这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目旨在证明一种新的校准方法的技术可行性，以解决无刷直流（BLDC）电机的电磁和硬件缺陷。该技术基于1）电机中的嵌入式位置传感器，以收集生成电机电磁缺陷图所需的位置相关参数; 2）专有算法，映射齿槽效应和互转矩，以改变输入电压/电流，消除相应转矩涟漪的负面影响; 3）编码器误差校正，以消除电机磁体的真实角位置与测量角位置之间的差异，从而改进电机校准和位置控制。本项目中的研究活动可能导致生成和验证集成所有所述组件的最小可行校准过程。校准软件能够最大限度地减少低端BLDC电机固有电磁缺陷的影响并提高性能，同时还将评估生成专门设计用于降低制造成本的创新硬件电机配置的可行性。该项目的成功结果将证明校准软件的商业可行性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to improve the market by developing a software solution to intrinsic electric motors’ hardware problems. Inexpensive Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors have electromagnetic flaws that limit their adoption in industrial and service robotic applications. These industries require precise positioning, advanced trajectory control, and smooth operation which require high-end motors that minimize electromagnetic flaws using high-quality materials and complex hardware designs. Unfortunately, this increases production costs, making them prohibitively expensive for many applications. The proposed solution will make electric motors extremely precise, efficient, and easily controllable while keeping manufacturing costs low. The combination of low-cost hardware and performance-enhancing calibration software will bring high-end motor performance to a wide range of industries, which may be able to improve the performance of their devices while saving up to 90% on motor costs. The first target will be the Robotic Market, expected to reach $158 billion by 2025, in particular the drone and industrial segments, where many manufacturers must balance cost and performance. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to prove the technical feasibility of a new calibration approach to solving electromagnetic and hardware flaws in brushless direct current (BLDC) motors. The technology is based on 1) embedded position sensors in the motor to collect the position-dependent parameters necessary to generate maps of motors’ electromagnetic flaws; 2) proprietary algorithms that map cogging and mutual torque to vary the input voltage/current, eliminating the negative impact of the respective torque ripple; 3) encoder error correction to eliminate the discrepancies between the true and the measured angular positions of the motor magnets, improving motor calibration and position control. The research activities in this project may result in the generation and validation of a minimum viable calibration process that integrates all the described components. The ability of the calibration software to minimize the impact of the inherent electromagnetic flaws in low-end BLDC motors and enhance performance will be assessed together with the feasibility of generating an innovative hardware motor configuration specifically designed to reduce manufacturing costs. The successful outcome of this project will demonstrate the commercial feasibility of the calibration software.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.