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| Torque sensor helps to design hybrid car | |||||||||
The torque-current characteristics of a combined motor-generator developed for a Lotus-based hybrid car have been mapped by a digital torque sensor. | |||||||||
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Jonathan Bremner of EMX explains that the mapping was essential, but could not be done in-house. "We are a design house, so tend to sub-contact testing to other organisations. With this project we needed to plot out the full range of performance, but had only a tight time window to do all the work." So EMX worked with a test house to design a simple yet effective test rig. It was not long before the specialist engineers had settled on using a TorqSense torque sensor as they could design a rig around it very easily, and then it was very quick and simple to use. "Normally when taking torque measurements you can spend more time fitting the transducer as they have to be mechanically coupled and use either slip rings, inducing drag, or induction coils that can have high inertia" says Bremner. "leading to inaccuracies that it can be very frustrating. But TorqSense is different; as it is a non-contact measurement sensor it monitors the sensor by use of a radio frequency (RF) link. It can be set up in moments, leaving us to concentrate on the analytical work in hand." And because the sensor is digital, its outputs can be fed directly into a computer, where calculations are performed automatically. The result is highly refined information, produced in real time, which designs out the data processing and assessment phases of the test programme. | |||||||||
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