Efficiency is the

Name of the Game in

Factories of the Future
Since the industrial revolution, humans have obsessed over
automation and efficiency, trying to make more with less resources.
In Industry 4.0 and leading on to the digitized factory of the future,
that trend is set to continue with new technologies like artificial
intelligence, IoT and quantum computing all allowing further
automating of tasks which previously required human interaction.
Thermodynamics is also important because its laws define whether
individual components and systems will stay within the limits
of their environmental specifications during operation. Even in
highly efficient equipment, some sources of heat still need to
neutralized or reduced. The bottom line? Strategies for cooling,
whether passive or active, will always be required.

With every new application and every newly automated

manufacturing step, the economics of producing goods will change.

Things like energy costs will come under increased scrutiny, as

a burgeoning number of machines plug in to take on factory
workloads, with processor and electric motor driven robots
working alongside humans, or, in some cases, even replacing
them altogether.

Heating Up
Besides the cost and ecological concerns, energy efficiency can
also play a role in the performance of a system. Wasted energy
often leads to excess heat which can have a negative impact on
the manufacturing process as well as the lifecycle expectancy of
equipment, making it necessary to expend additional energy for
cooling. Hence why good energy efficient design will be increasingly
critical the further down the automated path we progress.
Power and Efficiency
When it comes to motors, power density and motor efficiency
are some of the most important specifications. A large chunk of
research and development dollars at motion control companies
gets channeled into constantly improving these parameters.

Efficiency is the Name of the Game in Factories of the Future 2

This includes material research for magnets, coming up with
innovations in the area of motor windings and, of course, on the
controller side, more sophisticated control algorithms and faster
PWM update rates.
Besides ensuring improved component design, it is also imperative
to look at the complete drive system from the actuators, to
gear boxes, motors, encoders and controllers, to make sure all
components are perfectly matched and optimized on a system level.
Different strokes for Different, er, Robot Folks
The biggest challenges come from the exceedingly wide range of
applications that leverage motors. Every system has its own set of
requirements and challenges, so finding off-the-shelf solutions to
meet all the various application requirements often proves difficult.
There are various tactics employed to overcome these challenges.
These include miniaturization, customization and integration.
Miniaturization allows for the building of very tiny motors with high
power ratings and excellent efficiency characteristics, as well as
being able to make non-traditional formfactors – motors that can
be flat or various shapes. Meanwhile, customization is helpful for
those applications in which standard components don’t pack the
performance punch necessary. Some firms will even go the extra
mile and work with customers to customize everything down to
the integrated actuators themselves.
Smart Factories Need Programming For Dummies
It’s all very well having an army of motorized machines to do your
factory bidding, but only if it’s easy enough to program them to
do what is needed.
Motion control systems of yore were mainly centralized systems
running proprietary software, but today, with the proliferation
of mobile and tablets, companies have updated their systems to
accommodate. More often than not, motors can now be networked
via deterministic bus systems, where the low-level control loops
run in decentralized smart drives and the system controllers
range from classical PLCs, industrial PCs to embedded systems
all programmed with different tools and programming languages.
Vendors frequently offer different interfaces and APIs to allow
customers to easily integrate the drive systems in their specific
software environment. There’s also a big push to make APIs more
open source, and standards are in place to ensure devices can
connect and communicate better across the board. Common
programming languages like .NET, C/C++, C#, LabVIEW are also
Efficiency is the Name of the Game in Factories of the Future 3
now frequently used. This goes a long way to simplify application
development and integration.
Also noteworthy is the effort that has to go into properly configuring
motors and motor controllers to optimize them for performance
and efficiency, a job where software engineers really make the
hardware hum. Good software tools and systems make all the
difference in terms of allowing customers to get their machines
up and running efficiently, be able to fine tune on the go and
troubleshoot if anything goes wrong.
Getting Smarter
Everything in Industry 4.0 is getting smarter, from the machines
themselves to every component within the drive system. Today’s
motors can be equipped with a variety of sensors (like temperature
and pressure), and motion control systems to internally monitor
and analyze various parameters that allow for an evaluation of
the system as a whole.
There is also a trend towards integrated devices, in which controller
electronics are directly integrated into the motor unit. Connected
via modern automation networks, these allow for a distributed
intelligence within the devices, and enable the creation of very
modular automation systems.
Then, of course, there’s robotics, where significant amounts of
innovation is happening in the higher-level controller area where
advanced algorithms, sensor fusion and networking enable an
increasing amount of autonomy. This, in turn, is enabling an entire
market of “Co-bots” able to work alongside humans and do the
heavy, dangerous or repetitive jobs humans would rather not do.
For autonomous robotic systems like drones or delivery robots,
the biggest challenges are usually energy efficiency and energy
management, with power consumption directly affecting range
Efficiency is the Name of the Game in Factories of the Future 4
and length of operating time. Robots also need varying degrees
of flexibility and speed which requires dynamic motion control.
Additionally, the more sensors embedded into robots to allow them
to better perceive, navigate and work in their given environment
also means greater demands on control systems, providing yet
more challenges to motor control engineers. Not that they appear
daunted. In fact, a cursory look at the breadth and depth of the
motor control system market goes to show how quickly challenges
are overcome, how much creativity comes into play and that, really,
not much is proving impossible to surmount. The factory of the
future is no longer really science fiction, it’s pretty much science fact.
Efficiency is the Name of the Game in Factories of the Future 5