Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - TUMAPOS (Using TUnnel Magneto Resistance Technology for MAgnetic POSition MeasurementTUMAPOS)

Teaser

BOGEN Electronic GmbH, a German company with a 60-year history, is recognized as an internationally leading magnetic production specialist for measurement and information recording. The overall aim of this project is to improve BOGEN’s position in the magnetic measurement...

Summary

BOGEN Electronic GmbH, a German company with a 60-year history, is recognized as an internationally leading magnetic production specialist for measurement and information recording. The overall aim of this project is to improve BOGEN’s position in the magnetic measurement field and increase turnover, create new jobs and increase profit.

The project objective was to bring a new magnetic measurement solution to market that will extend the applicability of magnetic measurement in two directions:
– Enter a new business area, where customers request bigger reading distances between scale and sensor
– Improve accuracy of magnetic measurement, especially to compete with optical measurement systems with a cheaper magnetic solution

The development of the new measurement solution has achieved the following results:
– Improved MR elements reading magnetic scales to read the scales at a bigger distance and the project achieved 75% of the expected reading distance.
– Improved the inductive writing methodology to write pole pitches with 20 microns, which is smaller than the 25 microns planned,
– Replaced older MR elements in the current sensing heads with the newer MR elements has happened for prototypes and finalization of the products is required within the next months.

With the results of the project, BOGEN has increased the reading distance for several industries, where the accuracy is secondary to the reading distance. At the same time, the project led to the development of a measurement solution with higher accuracy based on better scale production technology in combination with a better sensor.

This has provided access to many measuring tasks that will be measured now magnetically instead of other measurement technologies today and this will open a market potential of € 600 million. The combination – using new MR technology and smaller scale increments – lead to magnetic measurement solutions with higher accuracy at lower cost than other technologies. The new MR based solution has been successfully improved during the project work so far and will be improved in the next months further. BOGEN has improved its experience in sensing head design and in magnetic scale production, with a patent covering the most effective method to produce the smallest scale increments. The project work organized to bring the solution from technology readiness level 6 to 9.

Work performed

The project has focused in the first twenty months initially at an intensive customer development activity to validate many hypotheses for the new product range. The results from the intensive customer dialogs confirmed the functional requirements. To the project team surprise, the customer had very specific geometric requirement, which were not aligned with the original plans of the project. A survey conducted online with a lot of participants highlighted that key requirements are smaller size and higher accuracy.

During the project work, the new products have been demonstrated to customers to verify the hypothesis developed during customer interviews. At fairs and in many customer discussions, the new products have been received very well. At the moment the discussion is starting for first prototype deliveries of the new products to final customers.

The development work had focused on three parts:
• Scale development
• MR technology development
• Sensing head development

The scale development has made great progress. The scales with smaller pole pitches (20 µm) can be produced and the accuracy of the scale can be measured consistently. Based on the feedback of the measurement, the quality of the scale can be improved. The project team selected new visualization tools to be able to view the smaller pole pitches. New build-in measurement equipment into the coding process is now able to read the small pole pitches. There were different sensors tested for reading the scales in production, and more improvements have been implemented. Besides changing the sensor, the algorithms in the machine were updated to deal with the higher level of information. Scales with 80 µm, 40 µm and 20 µm pole pitch can now be produced.

MR technology development progressed very much as well. While the initial TRL6 prototype only achieved 40% of the expected performance, several rounds of improvement have led to achieving 75% and more of the required performance. Despite some long lasting integration problems, we have achieved the first working sensor samples that can successfully be integrated into sensing heads. The development of further improvements to achieve the targeted performance is continuing, the yield of the production is increasing.

The sensing head development progressed quickly. Besides the X-IKS15 (analog) and X-IKS9 (digital), the project team finalized the development of the new X-IKS19 with the new product architecture. Especially the new product architecture led to many new requirements for the sensing head. During this phase, an interim solution was developed, that allows for functional testing. For the final product integration, the final packaging design has to be completed, which will happen within the next two months.

Regarding the technical side, a working prototype was achieved that was working with a much smaller pole pitch than the existing magnetic encoders work with. The target was defined with 80 µm pole pitch for this product line and a sensing head that reads this scale has been achieved.

In the last months, a lot of effort has been spent on the product launch of the new product line. BOGEN decided to use the X-class name for the product. The new products X-IKS9 and X-IKS15 were introduced to the market at the official launch in 2016 . The products were also shown at several exhibitions worldwide. A lot of discussion with customers have started based on these introductions.

Overall, the project solved many challenges and found solutions for them or several solution alternatives will be tested near term. The project team is committed to deliver the project results expected.

Final results

Technical progress so far has been
• Scales with much smaller pole pitches have been successfully written and read and improved: BOGEN can write 20 µm long pole pitches on scales
• MR technology has been developed to read the scales with a pole pitch of 80 µm and below.
• Demonstrators have been created to show the effects of the smaller pole pitch on resolution and the higher reading distance
• New sensing head architecture has been created and verified.

The expected potential impact has been reviewed. The key impact of this action will be a new encoder technology that will provide engineers with novel capabilities:
• Higher accuracy with magnetic encoder will enable new products, enhance existing products and bring new technologies
• Applying the magnetic encoders in environments, where other encoding technologies require energy-intensive support technologies, will reduce energy consumption significantly and reduce the carbon footprint.
• The expected outcomes of the new encoder technologies will allow measurement at very different applications and with very different approaches than today.
• Smaller sensing heads and scales will lead to smaller products that can fulfill more tasks. Smaller position feedback will reduce installation space requirements and overall product structural design, leading to more resource efficient products, since they can become smaller and or thinner and use less material.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.tumapos.eu.