It has been a glorious inaugural year for Swiss startup Absolute Magnetics. Able to maintain reliable angle sensing with stunning precision despite awkward external conditions such as misalignments and the presence of stray magnetic fields, their magnetic position encoder has received a lot of attention from design engineers attending key technology events recently. Also, not to be missed, is their first-year anniversary song.
The company develops tailormade absolute magnetic encoders that can be integrated into product designs on a customized basis using their patented, magnetic encoder technology. The encoder is able to cope with misalignment, big air gaps, air gap changes and strong magnetic external stray fields such as from an adjacent motor. Beginning the year at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, it has also been shown at XMR Symposium “XMR Sensors and Magnetic Microsystems” organized by Sensitec, and PCIM Europe, both held in Germany in March.
Basically, the company has invented and patented a new technology for rotary position sensing which is explained in a white paper available on the company’s website. It is authored by CEO Cornel Frigoli. A few highlights are given here.
The magnetic encoder system consists of two parts: A magnet with a unique, multiperiodic magnetization pattern and corresponding electronics for data processing. Signal acquisition is done on only a single magnetic track, unlike the Nonius/vernier principle which uses two magnetic tracks for data acquisition. Multiple magnetizations with different periods are intentionally superposed, which brings advantages in terms of robustness of the encoder. When it comes to air gap changes and eccentricity, there is no need to avoid interference of different magnetic tracks since the multi-periodic magnetic signal in three axes – radial, tangential and axial – are acquired on only the single measurement track.
Absolute Magnetics AG is located in Winterthur northeast of Zurich. For more info, see www.absolute-magnetics.com. Now, be sure to enjoy their first-year anniversary song. It is also available on their website. Don’t miss it!
