Ridder SmartDrive - A motion drive safety system for the agricultural sector

Smartdrive is a system containing of 2 products

A Motor Module with display, UI and control electronics and a custom position sensor module. A User Interface Module to give the end user remote manual control.‍

The main advantage of the SmartDrive system is that it makes the system safer (IEC60730 compliant) than the previous mechanical solution. Besides that, it simplifies and accelerates the installation in greenhouse constructions (reduction of at least 75%).

Implementation of the motor module

Safety was the most essential requirement in the development of this product. That is why the heart of the system exists of two independent processors (ARM Cortex) per product. One serves as an application processor (M4) and one as a safety processor (M0+).

The position sensor is a complicated product that always gives the correct position, even when the system is not powered, and the position has manually changed. Because of this, the position sensor was a challenging part to design and implement.

Collaboration

Demonstrators: during the implementation phase, while the customer was working on the user interface of both products, the decision was made to validate the designs by means of demonstrators which we made, to validate the design in the field, getting end-customer feedback as soon as possible during development.

Collaboration: as in most of our projects, the importance of seamless collaboration with multiple partners in this project was paramount for success. Together with Ridder and partners for app development, mechanical design and tooling (e.g. molds), we brought this project from idea to mass manufacturing.

Certification
In the industrialization phase, we played an active role in the certification process. This started with support in selecting an appropriate notified body. Before the actual certification we were in close contact with the notified body to explain the context and application of the product. Also we identified the required evidence for testing and certification. For the certification itself we created product setups including software to speed up the certification and we were present during certification tests to prevent problems/delays during testing.

Production preparation
Besides certification one of the tasks is to prepare the product for mass production with a target production volume per year defined by Ridder. This includes the final DFM (Design for Manufacturing), final DFA (Design for Assembly) and final DFT (Design for Test) for the electronics and mechanical components, where all designs are being analyzed and optimized for manufacturability, assembly, and testing.

Test equipment development
Furthermore, all test engineering for electronics (FCT) was done by Zign Innovations, based on our in-house testing environment. The final production files of the SmartDrive system have been delivered successfully and are being used for mass production.

Ridder - Switch to the future with Smartdrive -

Ridder - Switch to the future with Smartdrive -

Smartdrive is a system containing of 2 products

The display and interface

What we did:

Concept design

System design

Let's work together

Implementation of the motor module

Implementation of the User Interface module

Collaboration

Industrialization

Manufacturing

A selection of our work for brands we had the pleasure working with.