Design and Performance Evaluation of a Modular Linear Induction Machine for Rotating Electronic Billboard

This paper proposes a rotating electronic billboard (REB) to save the cost of space required for its installation and a modular linear induction machine (M-LIM) to rotate the proposed REB. REBs are generally installed in public places such as subways and airports to display the advertisements. The proposed REB can be installed around a pillar since it is hollow inside, hence, no additional space is required which limits the cost of the space required for REBs. The proposed M-LIM for rotating the proposed REB has a short straight primary and a ring-shaped secondary. The secondary is installed on top of the light emitting diode (LED) display bars such that when secondary rotates, LED bars rotate along with it. To confirm the suitability of the M-LIM in proposed REB, an M-LIM is designed, and the initial results are examined using three-dimensional finite element analysis (3-D FEA) to consider the 3-D effects in the proposed design. A prototype of the proposed M-LIM along with the proposed REB is manufactured and their collective performance is evaluated experimentally. The results show good agreement with the simulation.