Wells Vehicle Electronics, through its Wells Engineered Products division, was named the winner of the most innovative product in the Automotive category of the Best of Sensors Awards 2020 for its Rotary Position Sensor. Entries were judged and winners selected on the basis of value to the marketplace, uniqueness of the design, and the impact (i.e., the “bigness” of the problems solved or issues addressed).
When Henry Ford was pioneering mass production with the Model T, he needed ignition coils. That’s when Wisconsin entrepreneur Robert Wells stepped in. Based in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, USA, Wells established a business to meet the needs of the fast-growing automobile industry for electrical components.
Today, as a division of Wells Vehicle Electronics, Wells Engineered Products helps manufacturers of premium vehicles, power generation, and industrial equipment throughout North America manage their growing electronics needs based on the complexity of the modern vehicle.
Wells Engineered Products serves the businesses that build engines. Automotive manufacturers and their Tier 1 suppliers are major markets, but these products can be found in many smaller sectors too. Powersports, motorcycles, marine, and heavy-duty applications all utilize the electronic devices, assemblies, and products designed and manufactured by Wells Engineered Products.
Advanced motor technology is one of the keys to success in electric vehicles and elsewhere. Maximizing performance hinges on knowing rotor angular position and speed. Higher accuracy provides a competitive advantage, especially if it’s achieved by a smaller, lighter, and cheaper rotary position sensor.
In many electric motors, rotor position and speed are obtained by a VR resolver. Until now, the resolver was the best available technology, but Wells Engineered Products has something better: an innovative rotary position sensor.
Protected by multiple patents, this sensor performs the same core function as the resolver but does it better while costing less and taking up less space.
This new sensor is smaller than the equivalent resolver. That gives the motor designer more space for other uses, enables easy integration into existing motor designs, and saves weight. It’s also serviceable in the field.
Lamination-free construction improves durability while helping minimize susceptibility to local magnetic fields. This also contributes to the superior accuracy of the rotary sensor when compared to VR resolvers. Accuracy is closely related to calibration, and this new rotary position sensor is far more easily calibrated than is a VR resolver.
While the resolver is an analog device, this new sensor is capable of providing either analog or high-speed digital outputs along with a wider range of options for the types of data delivered. Besides providing mechanical rotation position, this sensor can provide electrical rotation position for commutation calculations. Output options extend to the arctangent and ramp analog output.
“This unique rotary position sensor for motor applications is quoted to have a significant number of user benefits versus existing solutions, including lower cost, smaller size, higher performance, ease of integration into designs, higher performance, and ease of calibration. What else can a design engineer ask for?” said Judge Roger Grace, Founder, Roger Grace Associates.
For full list of finalists in the Best of Sensors 2020 Awards:
https://www.fierceelectronics.com/sensors/best-sensors-awards-2020-finalists-announced