May 2020

A SURREY servomotor manufacturer has won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for a range of direct-drive integrated servomotors that combine brushless DC motors, drive electronics, position encoding and software in a compact package, capable of precise, smooth and silent motion. Woking-based Overview’s Servotorq motors are aimed at applications such as surveillance platforms, precision cameras, lasers and military sensor systems. Overview employs around 45 people and manufactures more than 75,000 camera and sensor positioning systems every year. The company says that its motors can solve complex positioning challenges faster and with lower development and production costs than before. Frustrated at the limitations of existing positioning systems, and not being able to find suppliers of positioning motors with the characteristics it needed, the company realised there was a gap in the market and set out to develop a product to fill it. It collaborated with Newcastle University and received support from Innovate UK to develop the technology. The Queen's Award for Enterprise, now in its 55th year, is awarded to UK businesses that demonstrate strong commercial success through innovative products or services. Another 2020 Innovation Award has gone to Aeristech , based in Leamington Spa, which was established in 2006 to develop and commercialise a new type of variable-speed permanent magnet electric motor. The high- speed motor is incorporated into a high- performance centrifugal air compressor that is used for applications such as industrial air compressors, air-side compression in hydrogen fuel cells, and superchargers for automotive engines. The motor and compressor are protected by a portfolio of patents, and the largest versions are rated at more than 20kW. Aeristech’s technology splits the control system for torque and speed, enabling smaller, more efficient controllers, coupled to dedicated motors. Aeristech’s CEO, Richard Wall, says the company plans to “build on its position at the forefront of electric motor design, not just in automotive, but across other sectors which require continuous, clean air from an oil-free source. These include pharmaceutical, aviation, industrial and aerospace.” 8 May 2020 www.drivesncontrols.com Two motor manufacturers win Queens Awards for Innovation p A collaborative effort by a group of UK organisations has resulted in more than 30,000 protective medical visors being produced per week, using a standardised design from the non-profit National 3D Printing Society (N3DPS). RS Components set up a 3D printing farm at its Corby headquarters to produce more than 1,000 visors a week, and asked members of its 930,000-strong DesignSpark community with access to 3D printers to produce visors as well. RS also donated 400kg of PLA filament – enough to 3D-print up to 20,000 visor frames. Igus acted as a distribution hub, donated plastic sheets for the 3D-printed frames, and provided facilities and staff to assemble the visors. p The Coventry-based ManufacturingTechnology Centre and the AdvancedManufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield have both loaned twomobile robots to help engineers at University College London (UCL) and Mercedes-AMGHigh Performance Powertrains to produce 10,000 life- saving CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) respirators in ten days for Covid-19 patients. The mobile robots were used to transport parts between different parts of the production area, facilitating social distancing, minimising contact between teammembers, and optimising workflows. One robot travelled around 20km a day on a 360m round-trip that included narrow corridors and a busy manufacturing area. p In less than a week, a group of German engineering companies developed a ventilator device that uses automation components to power a mobile ventilator originally designed to be operated by hand. FF Maschinen , Soga Gallenbach and Nast Automation worked with the drives supplier Stober to develop the device that“breathes”without needing to be powered by a human operator. The ventilator includes a Stober EZ302 synchronous servomotor in combination with a SC6A062 drive controller. p Mondelez International , the manufacturer of Cadbury’s chocolate, repurposed 3D printing technology that it normally uses to produce chocolate sculptures at its Bourneville site, to help print medical visors. It joined forces with aWarwick-based engineering company 3P Innovation , to produce the plastic bands used to connect the tops and bottoms of visors. Mondelez also helped 3P to buy the injection- mouldingmachinery needed to produce 10,000 visors every week. n NEWS COVID-19 BRIEFS Overview developed its integrated servomotors to plug a gap in the market Stephen Scales, a stalwart of the UK drives and controls industry, has died following an illness. He worked for IMO Precision Controls before leaving to form HID Hitachi, supplying the Japanese firm’s AC inverter and PLC products in the UK. He is credited with coining the term“sensorless flux vector”to describe the open-loop control on Hitachi’s drives. The term spread across the industry. In recent years, Scales was instrumental in founding a shipboard electrical and electronic systems supplier, Magnus Marines, with his son. Stephen Scales leaves a wife and two children. Leigh Hopkins has been appointed industrial sales director of Schaeffler (UK), based at its new offices in Fort Dunlop, Birmingham, where he will also become site manager. Hopkins has been with Schaeffler since 1994, working in various roles before being appointed industrial sales director, UK and Ireland, in 2016. In his new role, he is responsible for industrial direct sales to OEM and MRO customers. Dr ChrisYates has been appointed director of the German M&A advisory firmVision Ventures, which specialises in vision technologies and automated imaging. Yates previously held the role of director, advanced technology, in Rockwell Automation’s Safety & Sensing Business, following Rockwell’s 2017 acquisition of Odos Imaging, where he was founder and CEO. He is president of the European Machine Vision Association. David Hearn , former UK managing director of Stemmer Imaging, died on 21 March 2020, after a long illness. His first involvement with vision was working for Data Translation. He later became a director at the Optimas Corporation, before setting upVortex Vision in 1997. Stemmer took a stake in this business. In 2001, David and MarkWilliamson and formed Firstsight Vision, which originally acted as UK distributor for Stemmer before becoming its first wholly owned subsidiary in 2004 with Hearn as MD. He retired due to ill health last year. After 42 years as managing director of Physik Instrumente (PI), Dr Karl Spanner has handed over the management of the company to his son, Markus Spanner , who has been MD of Finance & Control at PI for the past 11 years. In his new role, he has established an extended management team to take a structured approach to achieving new targets. PI, which employs more than 1,300 people worldwide, specialises in precision positioning technologies.