STMicroelectronics presented various intelligent industrial solutions at the TECHNO-FRONTIER Japan in 2018, including predictive maintenance and fault detection sensor product technology, precision drive system motor control technology, and power Management technology that support various devices and energy efficiency standards.
In the production line, preventing production equipment failures and timely maintenance is crucial to improving production efficiency and reducing maintenance costs, and is an important advantage in the transition to an intelligent industry. At the STMicroelectronics booth, engineers demonstrated an "Industry 4.0" technology that monitors and analyzes motor vibration, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure through STMicroelectronics 6-axis motion sensor products and environmental sensor products installed in motors. While estimating optimal maintenance time, this technology also allows operators to detect spontaneous failures and perform quick repairs. Another demonstration activity focused on the ultrasonic detection of gas leakage in high-pressure pipelines based on MEMS microphones and STM32 microcontrollers. In this demonstration, MEMS microphones are used to detect high-frequency sound waves generated by gas leaks.
ST also demonstrated how to use various motor precise control technologies to promote the commercialization of drones, robots and other equipment. At the STMicroelectronics booth, engineers demonstrated how to use a miniature, highly integrated motor driver to control a brushless DC motor. This miniature motor driver incorporates an Arm®Cortex®-M0 microcontroller, ideal for small motor control systems such as micro-drone. In addition, ST also demonstrated a very practical new motor control software development tool suite that is compatible with the STM32Cube software development platform. Visitors will see how to use this tool to quickly and flexibly develop motor control functions.
In addition, ST also demonstrated smart lock models using Bluetooth® low energy and NFC technology, a time-of-flight sensor product model capable of accurate and fast ranging, and a highly sensitive UHFRAIN® RFID tag IC. Besides, to support the prototyping of IoT devices, STMicroelectronics presented the STM32 Nucleo development board with STM32 microcontrollers and X-equipped with motion sensor products, environmental sensor products, RF ICs, ToF sensor products, motor drivers, and NFC tags.
