Flexible design brings VFDs to wider market

VFD design is driven by desire for more safety, energy management and communication options.

Customer and market trends for VFDs
Market trends driving variable frequency drive development and design. Of all the customer and market trends identified, safety, energy management and design flexibility are vital. Integrated safety is becoming the norm, rather than the exception, and it’s being used beyond worker safety to improve production. With energy management coming to the forefront for many industrial automation applications, manufacturers are being pushed to develop not only more efficient VFDs, but also incorporate solutions for integrated energy management. Modular, flexible and scalable designs are enabling safer and more efficient AC drive for a wider audience.

Drive safe
The current market wants safety functions that are more reliable and easier to use. The VFD has to provide integrated safety functions for safe torque off (STO); this built-in functionality provides a much improved and reliable way to provide an emergency-stop mechanism to stop the motor if an unsafe condition or if an e-stop occurs, STO functions are designed to be fail-safe by removing all output torque to the motor, which allows the motor to coast to a stop. VFD manufacturers are implementing integrated-safety functionality and communications to provide a safer and more user-friendly way to integrate safety in the automation system.

Energy management
Sustainability and energy impact are key factors that manufacturers must consider for new designs. Energy-efficiency standards are being implemented around the world for minimum efficiency of motors to help reduce energy consumption, as well as carbon footprint. All of these things are driving VFD manufacturers to provide not only more energy-efficient drive and motor solutions, but also more robust networking, and software solutions to monitor and control energy consumption for optimizing processes to achieve a much higher energy efficiency from the system.

Design flexibility
VFDs are being used in more applications, as designs become more flexible to meet a wider swath of applications. This is accomplished by providing motor-control solutions that are networkable and modular, which allows for simple integration into various applications and upper-level machine control platforms. Machine flexibility is a key market factor. Not only do machine builders want modular machines they also want machines that can accommodate multiple products with different dimensions, weights and design.