n TECHNOLOGY April 2023 www.drivesncontrols.com 32 p Pre-Switch, a US developer of softswitching inverter technologies, says tests have shown that its CleanWave3 inverter operates with an efficiency of 98.5% at 5% load and 100kHz switching speeds. Its peak efficiency is 99.57%. It claims that this performance is better than any rival. PreSwitch uses AI to solve complex switch timing calculations dynamically, with changes made on a cycle-by-cycle basis to cut losses and raise efficiency. A key potential market is EVs where the technology could improve motor efficiencies, ranges and reliability. www.pre-switch.com p Mitsubishi Electric is doubling a previously announced investment plan in the five-year period to March 2026 to around £1.6bn, mainly to build a new wafer plant to boost production of silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors. The company says it is responding to rapidly increasing demand for SiC power semiconductors for EVs and other applications that need low energy losses, high temperature operation or high-speed switching. Around £619m will be used to build an 8-inch SiC wafer plant and related facilities in Japan. p IDS (Imaging Development Systems) has issued a free update for its IDS NXT AIbased vision system which enables the cameras to detect anomalies independently for quality assurance purposes. Users train a neural network that is executed on the programmable cameras. Relatively little training data is required compared to the other AI methods for object detection and classification. The updated software (version 3.0) also offers a code-reading function allowing the cameras to locate, identify and read different types of code and parameters. www.ids-nxt.com p The Danish firm MiR (Mobile Industrial Robots) has announced new cloud-based software that allows owners of mobile robot fleets to track and analyse their operations to deliver insights that will enable performance improvements, increased uptime, and more effective troubleshooting, resulting in faster ROIs. The MiR Insights application provides the fleet owners with data dashboards that monitor KPIs such as distance driven and completed missions, along with heatmaps tracking robot activity over time and physical locations.. www.mobile-industrial-robots.com p Electrified Automation, the Somersetbased producer of electric motor manufacturing technologies, has a new shrink-fitting machine for motor housings that combines reliability with precision to allow high-volume production. The Hot Drop machine combines heating and press technologies with easy-to-use software, and is claimed to improve process control and reduce product failures. www.electrifiedautomation.com/ hotdrop TECHNOLOGY BRIEFS Rotating machine monitors help to boost availability and reliability HONEYWELL HAS INTRODUCED a range of transmitters for condition-based monitoring of rotating equipment such as pumps, motors, compressors, fans and gearboxes, designed to maximise uptime and reliability by providing insights into their performance. The Versatilis transmitters measure vibration, surface temperature and acoustic signals to anticipate problems. They also monitor environmental variables including ambient temperature, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure. When used with Honeywell analytics software, the transmitters can help to predict problems such as imbalances, misalignments and bearing-related issues before they happen, helping to reduce unplanned downtime. The transmitters monitor vibrations in both the horizontal and axial planes. High vibration amplitudes in the horizontal plane can indicate potential imbalance issues, while high levels in the axial plane can indicate misalignment and bent shafts. If vibration amplitudes increase, this can confirm the severity of the faults. If frequency peaks occur at fundamental frequencies as well as at two, three or four times the fundamental, this can confirm that an issue is real. Finally, surface temperature trends can identify possible lubrication issues and potential faults due to air-cooling pipelines becoming clogged. The IP67-protected transmitters use the long-range, low-energy LoRaWan protocol to relay data on equipment health and the ambient environment over large areas. They also incorporate Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) communications for quick, reliable configuration and troubleshooting using mobile devices. The transmitters can be integrated with Scada or asset management platforms. As well as monitoring rotating equipment, the transmitters can also sense valve positions, surface temperatures, heat exchanger reliability and the health of steam traps. The batteries in the low power consumption transmitters can operate for up to five years. “Predictive maintenance through conditionbased monitoring is an important digitalisation use case at industrial facilities,” says Achal Nath, a senior director at Honeywell Process Solutions. “By integrating Versatilis transmitters into their operations, companies can utilise data-based equipment health insights to achieve optimal rotating equipment performance.” https://process.honeywell.com/ us/en/initiative/versatilistransmitter Honeywell’s Versatilis transmitters monitor the health of rotating machinery and their environments OMRON HAS ANNOUNCED a new cobot (collaborative robot) with a 20kg payload capacity, which is suitable for tasks such as palletising, machine tending and material handling. The TM20 cobot has a reach of 1.3m, weighs 33kg, and has a small footprint. The cobot is the most powerful model yet in the TM series developed under a strategic alliance with the Taiwanese cobot specialist, Techman. Other models have load capacities from 6–16kg. The TM20’s built-in smart vision compensates for positioning errors and ensures precision in fast pick-and-place tasks – semiconductor applications, for example – without needing additional visual or positional monitoring. This reduces integration time and costs. A technology called TM Landmark allows real-time updating of the relative position of the arm and key points in the environment, keeping the robot safely oriented in 3D space. The cobot’s light weight will make it easy to integrate with mobile robots. Special joint covers protect it from cutting oil and other hazardous materials, making it suitable for machine-tending applications. Fast joints are said to reduce cycle times. The cobot is designed to work with other Omron products including sensors, controllers and software. It comes with a two-year warrantee. Omron offers a ROI calculator to evaluate potential investments in collaborative robots. http://industrial.omron.eu/cobots 20kg-payload cobot weighs in at just 33kg
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