Drive technology integrated into automation - that is the philosophy of KEB Automation. This goes hand in hand with continuous further development as a system solution provider in the core areas of Control & Automation, Drives, Motors & Gearboxes as well as Brakes & Clutches with a high level of development and production depth. With modern drive and automation concepts, KEB creates suitable solutions for the special needs of machine and plant construction. What began with six employees in 1972 has today developed into a globally active medium-sized company for which more than 1,400 people work - over 900 of them at the Barntrup headquarters (as of 2019).

In the project

In the field of DC technology, KEB develops system solutions consisting of active infeed devices (AIC, Active Infeed Converter), several drive controllers and suitable EMC filter solutions and successfully implements them at machine level. Within the framework of the predecessor project DC-INDUSTRIE, KEB already contributed experience from this area and developed drive controller demonstrators, which will be used and evaluated in the new project DC- INDUSTRIE2 together with AICs from KEB including EMC filter units in the model plants in the future.

Compared to conventional AC technology, DC technology is robust against grid disturbances and achieves a significantly better energy balance due to lower conversion losses and direct energy exchange. DC technology can thus make a significant contribution to environmental compatibility and increased resource efficiency.

However, company-specific peculiarities of conventional DC systems have so far made the interaction of components from different manufacturers difficult, which can usually only be achieved through great effort and lengthy adjustments of the individual components. By standardising interfaces, work areas and definitions in the project, the market potential of DC technology should be better exploited.

Compared to the predecessor project DC-INDUSTRIE, the greater expansion of the DC network results in new challenges for the components, especially with regard to the electromagnetic compatibility of the system. KEB is working on solutions with which feed-in devices operated in parallel no longer necessarily have to be decoupled by heavy isolating transformers, but instead achieve a correspondingly high common-mode rejection by means of specially developed EMC filters.

KEB has been researching and developing filter technology for many years with regard to optimising the EMC of electrical drives. This know-how is the basis for achieving the goals agreed in the project.