Software Sensing
The game changed as computing costs plummeted while processing power and bandwidth took off. Sensors and wire were replaced with software and circuit boards inside of the drive. Vector control and other integrated torque control systems eliminated feedback loops and components, buss, electric infrastructure, boxes, and made drive systems easier and more accessible to more people and more applications. Architects began to select drives for energy ROI, and within a period of about a decade, nearly every new commercial HVAC fan came into view as a candidate for drive control.
Embedded Control
The first decade of the 21st century has machine OEMs of all specialties looking at direct, on-board computerization of the machine, for various reasons. At the basic end of an innovation spectrum, embedded drives are the natural next step in the quest for component reduction, and the first to do it well in their market always has a clear cost advantage. In the middle, we can find sophisticated, OEMs that are finding new ways to connect their machine products with their service offer through the drive. At the farthest end of the spectrum, we find core drive components -- power semi-conductors, processors and I/O, adapted to energize new motor architectures, like the permanent magnet motor. Here, drives essentially disappear into the machine, while still doing the critical work of speed variation.
Smart Grids and Machines
Back to our "critical inflection point." Change is coming faster then ever. The current trend toward miniaturization leading to invisibility is accelerating. The new factor is the smart grid. We're not at a place where the system is collapsed, completely. A smart and flexible machine will tap into a cloud of power and information, interpret signals in a coordinated dance with its peers, delivering precise motion into a cloud of work. The digital motor is one that produces the most work at the highest quality and flexibility, with the least attention, and by using the lowest possible amount of energy and resources for the effort. Here, it's important to understand the the smart grid is poorly named. It's not the grid that is smart, it's that all machines on it are smart, dare we say, self and network and process aware, in ways that were unimaginable 50 years ago, when this all began.
In summary, hindsight shows that drives have captured a larger role in linking electricity to work and information networks, while, ironically perhaps, they are getting smaller and closer, until they virtually disappear into the machine. When the do, then power delivery, information delivery and environment will change in ways that are unimaginable today.
