Design Engineering

OPTIMIZED ELECTROMAGNETIC DESIGNS

Aspen utilizes Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to ensure our electromagnetic designs are optimized for a variety of aspects depending on the specific application. Some general examples are:

• Maximize power density for a given physical envelope
• Minimize torque (kt) rolloff at high current levels
• Minimize Cogging associated with a specific design
• Minimize the overall cost associated with the design
• Minimize Audible noise characteristics

We also have the ability to employ tools such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to optimize designs involving air or liquid flow. This enables us to optimize an impeller design and/or volute design to optimize the design for a given flow/pressure requirement range.

We utilize several reliability tools to ensure our design meets the reliability requirements as requested by our customer. Some of the specific tools used are Bearing Life Calculations, L10, Boozers and Relex.

Electromagnetic Design

We have years of design experience with permanent magnet brushless motor machines ranging from very small motors (less than 1.0" in diameter) to very large motors (over 17.0" in diameter). Our experience includes both inner rotor and outer rotor design as well.

We have applied the experience that we have gained in brushless motor design over the years toward designing custom magnetic couplings for specific applications as well as customer transformers for use within our electronics designs.

We offer several existing registered UL insulation systems for our brushless motor systems and many UL/CE recognized designs.

In addition we provide design and support to both our customers and the certifying agency to assist our customers in gaining the applicable third party agency approval for their end products that use our systems.

Power Stage Design

An area of considerable engineering strength is our ability to design customer power stages. The range from 6 VDC up to 450 VDC; from < 1.0 Amps up to 400 Amps as needed. We primarily utilize MOSFET's or IGBT's as the main switching components for our designs. Some designs include integrated Power Factor Correction (PFC) to allow the power stage to operate over a large AC input voltage range as well as enable it to achieve CE approval in many cases.

We have several existing registered UL insulation systems for our brushless motor systems and many UL/CE recognized designs.

In addition we provide design and support to both our customers and the certifying agency to assist our customers in gaining the applicable third party agency approval for their end products that use our systems.

Controller Design

Another key strength at Moog Aspen is our ability to engineer both the hardware and the software for custom system controllers. We focus on designs that take full advantage of the many capabilities of the Digital Signal Processor (DSP's). In addition to DSP based design, we also have designs which incorporate microprocessors and FPGA's. Our controller designs incorporate not just the basic motor commutation requirement, but may also include additional control loops such as current loops, velocity loops, position loops and external loops (pressure, flow, temperature, torque).

This allows us to provide the highest level of integration control feasible, which in turn maximizes simplicity and overall cost for the end user.

Our designs also provide customized communication protocols. We will tailor our software to accommodate the specific customer protocol needed whether it is an industry standard format (ie; I2C, CANBUS, 485 (with multidrop), RS232, Zigbee) or a customer developed protocol.

We can also provide systems that communicate wirelessly.