Sensorless Brushless DC partnership

Melexis and STZ Mechatronik Ilmenau have partnered to support automotive and industrial customers that want to leverage the unique TruSense sensorless BLDC technology of the MLX81200. STZ has successfully realized automotive BLDC water pump and chassis ride height control projects using the MLX81200.

In the latter project the MLX81200 allowed shortened development time and reduced motor cost compared to a DSP based vector control solution by removing the need for commutation sensors inside the motor. These successes have now resulted in an official collaboration agreement named IMODAS (Ilmenau Motor Development and Application Service). STZ offers pure consulting as well as full drive system developments for MLX81200 based mechatronic systems. STZ has expertise in model based mechatronic design, EC motor development, magnetic simulation and measurement.
TruSense technology enables ultra low noise sinewave sensorless motor control, as well as torque control over the complete dynamic range from 0rpm to maximum rpm.


In a typical case STZ supports the customer with defining, designing and refining the motor. STZ can develop motor models to allow system level simulations, for instance when simulating the behavior of the car body in an active suspension system. STZ can also benchmark the MLX81200 sensorless technology against an existing sensored or sensorless solution, for instance based on DSPs with vector control.


Melexis Thomas Freitag ¡°The STZ expertise in the field of Mechatronic drive design is well known in Germany. Their knowhow, combining motor design and control, from simulation to sampling is very powerful. STZ understands well the unique capabilities of the TruSense technology and has demonstrated some impressive results in a very short turn around time, for projects where customers were not able to meet the application targets with standard microcontrollers and DSPs. STZ is an ideal partner that will allow us to support our fast expanding customer base for sensorless BLDC in automotive and industrial applications¡±.

STZ Dr. Zoeppig: ¡±The Melexis TruSense motor control IC¡¯s have an outstanding combination of integration density and design flexibility. These are assured by the combination of programmable analogue, digital and memory blocks in one compact device with flexible sensorless measurement and control algorithms provided as firmware. The MLX81200 adds high temperature range and automotive features, like direct battery connectivity to our desing platform concept providing both function and cost optimized system solutions for series production. So we warmly welcome Melexis to our co-operation network.