MCU family for motor control and AI-based endpoint predictive maintenance

Renesas Electronics Corporation has extended its MCU portfolio developed for motor control applications aimed at smart homes, industrial automation, and building automation. Offering a rich set of peripheral functions and AI-based failure detection, the four new RA6T1 Group MCUs are the recent members of the company’s rapidly expanding Arm-based RA Family, and the first RA MCUs developed for the unique requirements of motor control in home appliances, solar inverters, HVAC, and AC drives.

“As home appliances and building and industrial automation equipment become smarter and more complex, manufacturers are grappling with rising BOM costs to support increasing motor performance demands,” said Roger Wendelken, senior vice president of Renesas’ IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit. “The RA6T1 MCUs combine the superior performance and flexibility of the Arm-based RA Family with Renesas’ long-standing motor control expertise. Also, with the emergence of AI-based needs, Renesas is excited to complement Google’s TensorFlow Lite supported platforms with the RA6T1 motor control and predictive maintenance solution.”

“AI and machine learning are taking predictive maintenance to the next level as the industry advances toward Maintenance 4.0. We are excited to join forces with Renesas and accelerate the adoption of smart home and Industrial IoT applications,” said Ian Nappier, product manager at Google. “Integrating our open-source TensorFlow AI framework with Renesas’ powerful RA6T1 MCUs brings breakthrough intelligence to motor control equipment.”

The company also provides a new Renesas Solution Starter Kit for developers working on a motor control solution utilising the RA6T1 MCUs. The kit provides easy motor control debugging and allows customers to immediately begin evaluating their motor control design, executing real-time analysis and tuning to accelerate development.