Compact electric motors with more torque and degrees of freedom.
Electromagnetic motors typically convert electrical energy into rotational mechanical energy and are employed across a wide array of applications. While motors represent relatively mature technology, practitioners continue to seek ways to enhance motor operation including a decrease in cost, drop in size/weight, reduction in power consumption, increase in reliability, and enhanced degrees of freedom (i.e., the number of ways a machine can move within threedimensional space). NASA GSFC has invented directed flux motors that increase degrees of freedom, albeit at the expense of device complexity and mass. Thus, the opportunity for further improvements in directed flux motors remains.