Design, build and testing of MAGtronics electricity harvesting technology for rotor instrumentation in a 10 kW variable speed drive system

This project is a collaboration between Wind Technologies Limited (WT) and Cambridge University Engineering Department (CUED) and aims to study, prove and quantify the performance and economics of a new energy harvesting technology, MAGtronics, that extracts DC electricity from the leakage magnetic flux in an electrical motor. Through removing the need for battery-powered supply, MAGtronics enables instrumentation and monitoring of rotor operation, which can increase the efficiency and reliability of inverter-fed motors, and reduce maintenance costs, hence contributing to wider penetration of variable speed drives (VSDs) in industrial motor applications, such as pumps, fans and compressors. A prototype system comprising MAGtronics, measurement sensors, and signal conditioning, data management and wireless transmission electronics will be built & tested in a 10 kW VSD, and its performance and benefits assessed and quantified. The industrialisation aspects of its hardware and software design will also be studied