1. Becoming a Solution Company That Supports People’s Lives and the Global Environment

What will motors, whose main job is to move things, be able to do if they are provided with information-handling functions?
Motors and other driving systems operating all over the world,
if interconnected as one, will bring about numerous solutions that no one has ever thought of.

Aiming to Become an Indispensable Company That Can Solve Human and Global Issues

Creating the future with new products and businesses
via technological innovation
To reduce traffic accidents and congestion, and suppress CO₂ emissions, actions have been launched to make car-driving more autonomous and the traffic system more efficient. In the area of robotics, on the other hand, service robots that support humans in various domains of life are being introduced to supply labor needs caused by a low birth rate and an aging and declining population. The Nidec Group will adopt IoT^*1(Internet of Things), AI (Artificial Intelligence), and other advanced technologies and technological innovations, create new products and businesses, and evolve into an indispensable company that can solve human and global issues.

*1 IoT (Internet of Things): A network of all physical objects interconnected via the Internet.
*2 HMI (Human-Machine Interface): A general term for devices, software, and other things that enable humans to exchange information with machines.
*3 VR (Virtual Reality): Technology to experience a computer-generated virtual space as if it were reality.
*4 AR (Augmented Reality): Technology that uses a transmissive display or smartphone to superimpose characters, images, etc. on a real image.

Change the World by Interconnecting Things That Spin and Move

Integration of supercomputers and motors
Current smartphones are as smart as supercomputers that would have cost 3 billion yen 40 years ago. By 2025, microcomputers with the same level of smartness as current ones will cost approximately 50 yen each, and they will be small enough to be installed in motors. In a few years, a new era will arrive. Nidec factories will be shipping out, one after another, “intelligent motors” equipped with microcomputers that control rotation and enable communication with the outside world. This new era will bring many convenient products and systems, such as air conditioners and other appliances that users can control from afar and that operate automatically and optimally, self-driving automobiles, and smart factories that produce and transport products automatically. Motors that will not only operate via remote control but also think and function optimally by themselves will dramatically change our lives and society. While making our lives richer and more convenient, these motors will also eliminate redundant operations at factories, significantly reduce power consumption, and contribute to solving environmental issues.

The arrival of an age where everything will be connected to the Internet
Now is the time of IoT, where everything—from appliances and cars to factories’ manufacturing equipment—is connected to the Internet. Information from these things will not only be processed real-time in machine-machine communications, but also accumulated as data. Analyzing such accumulated big data and providing feedback for operation and production planning, design, and product development will enable us to add new value. This age of IoT vitally requires, among other things, technology to analyze such big data, AI to promptly process and optimally control an enormous amount of information, and HMI to interconnect humans and machines. The Nidec Group will, with its motor-based drive technology, utilize open innovation and keep in close contact with outside R&D institutes and other organizations as it engages in IoT research and development.

Ubiquitously used motors to play vital roles in IoT
Motors, essential in the 21st century’s industries, are used everywhere. Intelligent motors, in addition to spinning and moving, will work as sensors to transmit data as primary devices in the age of IoT. The Nidec Group supplies the entire globe with motors, motor-based modules and units, as well as motor-using manufacturing devices, inspection machines, and industrial robots, among many other products. Interconnecting these hardware devices using IoT technologies in various fields and analyzing data collected in them will enable us to see characteristics and trends that have never been seen before. For example, the solar-powered irrigation water pumps that Nidec sells in India can combine their past operation records with weather and other data to help us propose more productive farming methods than conventional ones.