POWER CONVERSION & MOTOR CONTROLS

To achieve operational advantages, such as silent mobility and improved sprint, and to reduce total cost of ownership, the military and aviation industries are working to electrify their fleets through the introduction of electric and hybrid-electric drive technologies.

Calnetix Technologies’ Defense & Aerospace division offers high-performance, power dense and energy efficient variable speed drives and inverters for power generation,  power conversion and motor controls. Calnetix has adopted traditional silicon and silicon carbide (SiC) technologies in its power conversion systems at power levels ranging from 10 kW to over 1 MW. Drive solutions from Calnetix encompass the full power chain, from power source to delivery of mechanical torque and from mechanical torque to electrical power when operating as a generator.

Calnetix Power Electronics typically interface with machines that are either high speed surface mount or Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) constructed, usually with two or four poles. More complex higher pole configurations can also be interfaced to Calnetix Power Electronics and the controls can also be adaptable to interface with induction motors.

Calnetix provides products, such as turboexpanders and Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) heat recovery systems to the industrial market for conversion of waste energy to power. These products range up to over 1MW depending on the application. Calnetix has produced hundreds of variable speed drives (VSDs) for a specific ORC application rated around 125 kW. There is an ongoing activity to incorporate SiC switching devices into this existing product line to improve conversion efficiencies from ~95% to over 98% and increase the yield of the ORC system.