The present work deals with the development of limited motion actuators dedicated to the air flow regulation of internal combustion engines. Because of the recent European Standard applied to car manufacturers, new conceptions of internal combustion engines need a new air flow management such as the low pressure exhaust gas recirculation. According to a state of art on electromechanical actuators that manage the combustive flow, there are mainly two electric topologies for rotary movements: the first one is an indirect drive which is composed of a brushed DC motor associated with a reduction spur gear set, the second one is a direct drive with a brushless DC motor. The topologic analysis carried out in order to design these actuators is based on a multi-physics approach involving mechanical, electrical, magnetic, thermal behaviours and control laws. With requirements, four magnetic topologies have been modelized in linear behaviour and optimized to minimize the external volume. Each actuator is composed of two bipolar permanent magnets on the rotor and two polar teeth on the magnetic core. With an attractive criteria per volume unit torque for a limited stroke application, one of them is chosen to minimize the electrical energy consumption. In order to compare the results of this optimized actuator, a brushed motor and a two reduction stage gear set are modelized and optimized with the aim of minimizing the energy consumption with the same required performances. This approach associates physical and dynamical constraints on actuator designs and contributes to realize a global optimization of machine, power electronics and control law.
