Design, 3D FEM Simulation and Prototyping of a Permanent Magnet Spherical Motor

In recent years, large tilt angles, uniform magnetic flux distributions, strong forces, and large torques for motors have increasingly become important for robotics, biomedical, and automotive applications that have multi-degrees of freedom (MDOFs) motion. Generally, one-degree of-freedom motors are applied in MDOF motion. These situations cause the systems to have very complex and large structures. In order to address these issues, a 2-DOF surface permanent magnet spherical motor with a new mechanical design for the movement of the rotor with a large tilt angle of ±45° was designed, simulated, produced and tested in this paper. The motor consisted of a 4-pole permanent magnet rotor and a 3-block stator with 18 coils. In this study, the mechanical structure of the proposed spherical permanent magnet motor surrounded the rotor with two moving parts to move at a large tilt angle of ±45° without using any mechanical components such as spherical bearings, joint bearings, and bearing covers. Thus, the tilt angle, force, and torque values of the proposed motor have been improved according to MDOF motion motors using spherical bearings, bearing covers, or joint bearings in their mechanical structures in the literature. Ansys Maxwell software was used for the design and simulation of the motor. Three-dimensional (3D) finite element method (FEM) analysis and experimental studies were carried out on the force, torque, and magnetic flux density distribution of the motor. Then, simulation results and experimental results were compared to validate the 3D FEM simulations results.

Analytical Investigation on Torque of Three-Degree-of-Freedom Electromagnetic Actuator for Image Stabilization

In keeping with consumers’ preferences for electromagnetic motors of ever smaller power consumption, it is necessary to improve the power efficiency of the electromagnetic motors used in unmanned aerial vehicles and robots without sacrificing their performance. Three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) spherical motors have been developed for these applications. Accordingly, this study modifies the 3-DOF spherical motor proposed by Hirata’s group in a previous study (Heya, A.; Hirata, K.; Niguchi, N., Dynamic modeling and control of three-degree-of-freedom electromagnetic actuator for image stabilization, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 2018, 54, 8207905.) to accomplish a 3-DOF spherical motor for camera module with higher torque output in the large rotation angle. The main contribution of this study is to improve the static torque in the X- and Y-axes with an improved electromagnetic structure and a particular controlling strategy. In the structural design, eight symmetrical coils with specific coil combination are used instead of conventional four symmetrical coils. In this study, the development of the proposed 3-DOF spherical motor was constructed and verified by using a 3D finite-element method (3D FEM). The simulation results show that the proposed 3-DOF spherical motor has higher torque output in the large rotation angle when compared to the original 3-DOF spherical motor.

Sensorless Posture Detection of Reluctance Spherical Motor Based on Mutual Inductance Voltage

In this paper, a sensorless rotor posture detection method based on the mutual inductance voltage of the stator coil is proposed to simplify the position detection element of a reluctance spherical motor. Firstly, the numerical relationship between the stator/rotor pole misalignment angle and the mutual inductance voltage of the stator coil is analyzed, which is used as the basis for judging the spatial position of the rotor. Secondly, an experimental platform is designed to verify the consistency between the calculated value and the experimental value of the mutual inductance voltage and to determine the appropriate excitation signal. Thirdly, based on the real-time voltages generated by the stator coil mutual inductance, an intelligent algorithm is used to invert the 3-DoF (degree-of-freedom) position angle of the spherical rotor combined with the motor structure constraints. The experimental results show that the detection method has a good on-line detection effect, and the population standard deviation is within 1.8° Therefore, the developed technique can be used for replacing the position detection method with sensors.