ARTC Wins Gold and Silver at 41st Inventions Geneva

Taiwan's Automotive Research & Testing Center (ARTC), a key vehicle testing and R&D hub on the island, once again proved its mettle at the 41st International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva (Inventions Geneva), held April 10-14 in Geneva, Switzerland, taking both gold and silver prizes.

The ARTC outdid over 1,000 other submissions from 45 nations, winning for its wireless charging system with magnetic field shaping (Gold Award), and stimulus-based steering sensor (Silver).

Joy Huang, ARTC president, says that the center's R&D goal is to develop advanced automotive products fully meeting global trends and requirements, so the ARTC has been aggressively focusing on auto-electronic and clean-energy fields. To date, he stresses, the ARTC has won 13 gold, 15 silver and one bronze in some of the most coveted international invention contests. Another of the ARTC's goals is to help local companies acquire technologies to build key automotive parts to upgrade global competitiveness.

Wireless Charging System with Magnetic Field Shaping

This wireless charger is quite convenient despite the relatively slow power-transmission. To accelerate transmission efficiency, ARTC engineers developed the wireless charger with magnetic field shaping, which utilizes a special coil construction (a five-facet box) to concentrate the magnetic field of wireless power transmission. The advanced design can decrease the non-magnetic interferences, eliminate electromagnetic interference (EMI), and minimize heat generated in the magnetic field, hence accelerating power transmission while extending transmission distance.

The ARTC stresses that the new wireless charger is very versatile, applicable in 3C (computer, communication, and consumer electronics), home appliances, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) including e-buses.

Stimulus-based Steering Sensor

ARTC's other winner, the stimulus-based steering sensor, is another addition to the, says the ARTC, increasing range of steering and torque sensors that play ever more important role in today's vehicles that are equipped with more safety and auto-electronic support systems as electronic stability control (ESC), AFS (Adaptive Front-lighting System), Advanced Parking Guidance System (APGS), electric power steering (EPS) etc. These sensors pick up steering data that activate safety systems to enable smoother operation.

This stimulus-based steering sensor highlights the ARTC's innovative capacity to integrate functions of steering and torque sensor, also effectively reducing the installation volume as well as production cost. The new system utilizes the magnetic-stimulus and voltage-sensing principles to enable non-tactile sensing, hence eliminating friction and wear that extends durability. Other advantages of the integrated sensor, according to the ARTC, include direct installation, built-in self-analysis, high reliability and precision etc.