PowerCare - Cognitive power electronics for more efficient and fail-safe drive systems - Fraunhofer IMS

PowerCare offers an edge-based monitoring concept for continuously operated and failure-critical industrial drives. With intelligence integrated locally in the motor driver for early failure indication for
1. electric motors (e.g. bearing damage) and
2. semiconductor components in the power module (e.g. transistor degradation).

The algorithms for local failure monitoring can be ported to a variety of motor controllers and microcontrollers and offer
- Failure indication directly on the critical drive
- Data security through edge-based instead of cloud-based evaluation
- Low latency - “real-time capable”
- Application-specific adaptation (e.g. bearing damage in conveyor belt systems)

Furthermore, the current trend towards new types of wide bandgap semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN)
- more compact designs of power modules and
- high efficiency values can be achieved in converters (up to 30% less power loss compared to silicon-based power semiconductors).

However, the lack of reliability of new power electronics is putting early adopters to the test. This is particularly true for critical electrical drive systems, where failure can put people at risk. PowerCare offers monitoring of power modules with next-generation semiconductors for this purpose.

Your contact at the stand:
Dr. Sebastian Wirtz
Fraunhofer IMS