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toolsZONE Products for the week of August 3, 2009
New Scale Technologies Says…
Developer's kits showcase world's smallest linear motor and highest-resolution miniature position sensor
Kits feature New Scale's tiny SQUIGGLE piezoelectric micro motor and TRACKER NSE-5310 miniature position sensor; serve as reference designs for closed-loop OEM system integration down to 0.5 micron resolution
New Scale Technologies announced new developer's kits for its SQUIGGLE linear micro motors and TRACKER NSE-5310 position sensors. The DK Series developer's kits feature a tiny SQL series SQUIGGLE piezoelectric micro motor and a TRACKER NSE-5310 miniature position sensor. A slide assembly serves as a reference design for mechanical integration. A drive card with New Scale's NSD-1202 motor controller ASIC serves as an electrical reference design and a development tool for use from initial product evaluation through prototype development.
The compact kit is powered by two AA batteries, with a push-button operation to demonstrate motion. The New Scale Pathway Software controls the kit through a USB interface connected to your PC, to allow for more detailed evaluation and system development. All components can be removed from the kit using basic tools for system integration and prototype testing.
The kits are designed to simplify evaluation of this miniature motion technology and its integration into miniature OEM products such as medical devices, tiny optical systems, and micro-robotic instruments.
Closed-loop SQUIGGLE motor/TRACKER sensor kit
The model DK-1.8-SS-TRK-33 closed-loop developer's kit is designed for evaluation of the TRACKER NSE-5310 position sensor and the closed-loop operation of the SQUIGGLE motor. It includes:
- SQL-1.8-6-12-SS SQUIGGLE motor: The world's smallest linear motor at 2.8 x 2.8 x 6 mm, featuring 6 mm travel, 30 gram force stall force and 0.5 µm resolution.
- TRACKER NSD-5310 position sensor: A magnetic sensor array with on-chip digital encoding and 0.5 µm resolution. The developer's kit includes a sensor in TSSOP package; the NSE-5310 is available in chip-on-board packaging as small as 3.9 x 2.5 mm.
- MC-3300 motor controller: A development platform and reference design integrating the NSD-1202 motor driver ASIC. The controller generates high frequency signals to drive the SQUIGGLE motor and accepts feedback from the TRACKER or other position sensor. It connects to a PC via USB.
- New Scale Pathway Software: Evaluate the motor and sensor using a graphical user interface or develop and test scripts using the intuitive scripting interface. Documentation describes the ASCII codes that would be used in an OEM's embedded system or microcontroller.
- Mechanical reference design. The SQUIGGLE motor and TRACKER NSD-5310 sensor are integrated into a slide assembly demonstrating proper mounting, loading and alignment.
Open-loop SQUIGGLE motor kit
The model DK-1.8-SS-33 open-loop motor kit includes all of the above components except the position sensor. It facilitates open-loop motor evaluation, or development of systems using other position sensors or limit switches.
EN-Genius Says…
These PC-hosted development kits from New Scale Technologies, priced at less than $500 each, offer a practical route to support an exciting class of ultra-miniature 3.3 V linear motion motors and sensors. Unlike conventional gearhead motors, the patented Squiggle motors are very much smaller than their electromagnetic counterparts, and are entirely devoid of gears and cams.
Alternating voltage between pairs of PZT (lead zirconate titanate) piezo plates in a Squiggle motor produces orbital motion. The PZT plates, placed at 90º intervals on the outside of metal tubes containing threaded rods, transmit ultrasonic vibrations that cause the orbital motion. That motion rotates the rods, which, in turn, produces linear motion.
Nanometer Resolution
 Linear Squiggle motors are claimed to provide precise nanometer resolution – and are reasonably powerful. There are models that can exert Newton forces as high as five. You can also vary a Squiggle motor's speed from 1 micron/s to 10 mm/s.
These motors are really small, too. Some can measure 1.8 x 1.8 x 6 mm (0.072 x 0.072 x 0.24 in.) in size. That's less than half the size of competing piezo motors and micro motors.
According to New Scale Technologies, its tiny motors also exhibit better efficiency than conventional gearhead motors, dissipating power only when moving. They also point to an order of magnitude higher precision than other motors.
Significantly, Squiggle motors also comprise only seven parts. As such, they should be able to be reproduced at low unit cost in volume quantities. As New Scale Technologies' press release notes, the company also supports its ultrasonic piezoelectric motors with dedicated ASIC drivers in surface-mount packages.
Position Sensors
The Tracker NSD-5310 magnetic position arrays mentioned in the press statement are key to Squiggle motor deployment, as is the DK-1.8-SS-TRK-33 dev kit. For their part, NSD-5310s sensors include integrated encoders that provide direct digital output across a standard I2C bus. Up to two Trackers can hang on a single I2C bus.
Insensitive to dust, light, shock and vibration, Tracker arrays comprise eight Hall-effect sensors each. These eight Hall devices measure varying magnetic fields produced by multi-pole mag strips that move above the sensors. The motion over the Hall arrays on the encoder chips generates sinusoidal and phase-shifted (cosine) signals that are transformed into angle and magnitude signals to represent absolute linear position.
Automatic gain control is also available. If used, AGC adjusts for dc bias in the magnetic fields, which New Scale says can boost dynamic range. That can increase immunity to external magnetic fields. It can also provide an absolute field intensity magnitude that can help detect the end of a magnetic strip.
As noted in New Scale's release note, the sensors are available in either TSSOP surface-mount packages, or as dice-on-foil. Not mentioned is that custom packaging, such as wafer-level chipscale or chip-on-board packages, can also be provided. The company also offers custom application-specific motion modules.
Windows Software
The Pathway Software referred to briefly in New Scale's press statement is also key to developing working Squiggle motor/sensor circuits. Bundled with the dev kits, the software runs on any Win XP Pro or Vista PC that has at least 75 Mbyte of free disk space and is equipped with Microsoft .NET Framework v1.1.
 Once installed, Pathway Software will let you operate Squiggle controllers and Tracker sensors directly from the Windows environment across a Universal Serial Bus connection. The software's point-and-click graphical user interface lets you interactively operate the motors, sensors, and dev kit systems.
The GUI's tabs, value boxes for parameters such as speed, step, and frequency, and graphical buttons let you jog and continuously run Squiggle motors, with all features accessible using your mouse and/or keyboard. The software also features a script generator that lets you create and run automated commands and sequences.
While Squiggle motor technology is largely in the infancy stage, there are promising applications in quite a variety of fields where precision motion could be an enabler. What's more, the market for piezo motors is expected to grow to nearly $11 billion in the next two years, according to researchers at Innovative Research and Products Inc. That's an average annual growth rate of more than 15%, which isn't too shabby. With New Scale's dev kits in hand you may very well stand to reap some of that profit in relatively short order.
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