The Electric Motor Education and Research Foundation (EMERF), which is The Motor and Motion Association (SMMA) foundation, named Texas A&M University as its 2013 grant recipient.

EMERF formed a pre-competitive research group of SMMA member companies to review and provide input regarding potential research topics that were of interest and value to the small motor manufacturing industry. “Achieving Improvements in Power Density while Simultaneously Increasing Efficiency in Small Electric Motors” was identified as the research topic. The solicitation was released in September 2013 with eight respondents. The goal of this effort is to provide a new small motor technology that meets the technical targets defined in the solicitation. The $15,000 award in this round is expected to be the start of a program that will take this new technology to market.

Texas A&M University’s Electric Machines and Power Electronic (EMPE) Laboratory, under the leadership of Hamid A. Toliyat, PhD, PE, Fellow of IEEE, submitted the winning proposal. The project, “Design of Ferrite Assisted Synchronous Reluctance Motor (Fa-SynRM) with Aluminum Conductors in Stator,” is expected to start in January 2014 and last six months.