For this piece of news, we move to the United States, in Massachusetts, where Draper company is accomplishing a great change in the world of electric motors through the introduction of electrostatic motors.
They are a new family of electric motors and generators not based on electromagnetic principles but on electrostatic principles; a patent that would make electric motors lighter and more efficient.
How have they achieved this technological turning point? The innovation is based on a radical technological disruption: motors that exploit the forces of electric fields, and not magnetism, to generate torque.
In the past, however, electrostatic motors were too weak and problematic to compete with their electromagnetic counterparts, for instance owing to the heavy weight, the low maximum rotation speed and the big volumes of dielectric fluid.
Nowadays, on the contrary, due to the progress of materials and design, Draper is actually developing powerful electrostatic motors that can make the difference. Draper electrostatic motor includes a cylindric rotor and a stator, with the electrodes positioned on a cylindrical surface inside the stator. Electrically conductive electrodes are mounted on the cylindric rotor and a dielectric fluid fills the space between rotor and stator to prevent the electret discharge.
This approach might bring various benefits to different applications of electric motors: for drones, for industrial robots and the electric mobility.
