Correlated Magnetics Research Awarded Patent for MagPrinterTM Technology
Magnetizing Circuit Enables Complex Smart Magnet Exploration, Notice of Allowance Received
Online, April 11, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Correlated Magnetics Research (CMR) has received a Notice of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a patent for CMR's MagPrinterTM system developed by company founder Larry Fullerton and the CMR engineering team.
The MagPrinter magnetizing circuit generates tightly focused, high-intensity magnetic fields that penetrate magnetizable material to produce remnant magnetic elements, each having a specified size, shape, polarity, amplitude and orientation. The system can render these magnetic elements (maxels) even in the "hardest" rare-earth based magnetic materials. This represents an enabling technology for coded magnet design, research and development.
Because the system can render large numbers of magnetic elements with great precision, complex encoded magnetic structures can be created rapidly. Maxels in magnets are analogous to pixels in an electronic display; the greater the number of maxels, the more precise the control over the resulting magnetic field and forces. Just as large numbers of picture elements provide richer visual content and more accurate image reproduction, so do high-maxel-count patterns affect the magnet capabilities and spatial focus.
In the larger sense, CMR's programmable magnet technology provides the ability to develop magnetic structures to meet specific application requirements and functionality instead of relying only on the fixed behavior of conventional magnets. By aggregating maxels into prescribed geometric patterns, devices can be created that produce behaviors far beyond the simple attract and repel of today's standard magnets.
CMR's MagPrinter system includes the patented magnetizing circuit, high-resolution positioning actuators, Silicon Controlled Rectifiers (SCR) to change polarity "on-the-fly" and a robust magnet design environment complete with library examples and archive/retrieval capabilities. The creation of this system elevated pattern research capacity from dozens of maxels to thousands of maxels per pattern, and empowers rapid prototyping of magnet test articles to complement the advanced numerical modeling capabilities at CMR.
Applications for coded magnetic structures are in development across a wide range of product and process categories ranging from biomedical analyzers and orthopedic solutions to aerospace and automotive applications; from vibration isolation systems to magnetic lifts, toys, consumer electronics, manufacturing equipment, motors, generators and more.
"The MagPrinter provides our research and development team the capability to imagine new solutions and pursue new inventions in magnetism that can address an enormous variety of engineering challenges," said Larry Fullerton, CMR CEO and inventor of correlated magnetics. "Such solutions are inconceivable with conventional magnets. Companies are finding uses for behaviors such as contactless attachment, precision alignment and stored mechanical energy - behaviors in magnetism achievable only with a correlated magnetics approach. It's all very exciting."
To date, CMR has received 64 issued U.S. patents. CMR has dozens of patent applications pending in the U.S. and around the world. The foundational patent portfolio provides IP coverage on every step of the process of creating correlated magnets: code evaluation, simulation, prototype development, test and measurement, manufacturing (whether printed magnets or arrangements of discrete magnets) and a wide variety of uses.