An electric actuator selection aid for low cost automation

[摘要] Low Cost Automation (LCA) is of immense importance to industry, and even more sofor small scale industries. In implementing LCA determining cost effective andefficient actuator alternatives present challenges for design engineers. Most oftendecisions are experiential or entirely based on manufacturer recommendations.Experience based decisions are most often biased with respect to the engineers'knowledge. Similarly, manufacturer recommendations are restricted to their ownproducts and are as such also biased. Either way, sub-optimum drive alternatives maysometimes be chosen. This demonstrates the need for making better informed decisionsbased on more than experience and what is available for use.This thesis reports the development of an electric actuator selection procedure and aidfor use in the early layout design phase. It provides readily accessible information ontechnically viable actuator options. Experiential knowledge of experts in the field,commercial information, as well as data obtained from experimentation was used in itsdevelopment. Being orientated towards LCA, the procedure has been targeted at theapplication of electric motors and their associated control technologies but can beextended to hydraulic, pneumatic and other actuators. In achieving a wider applicabilityof the selection aid, a generic set of actuator properties descriptive of most actuatorswas formulated.An AC drives control evaluation was conducted for developing the selection procedureand aid. It provided a means to validate some selection aid rules associated withactuator controllability. Quantitative data on speed and positioning accuracies ofcommon AC three phase motors and their associated inverter technologies were thetargeted results of the experimentation.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University