Engineers Ran a Motor at 100,000 RPM With No Position Sensor

A team of engineers has shown they can run a very fast electric motor without one of its usual parts: the position sensor. That sensor is a small device that constantly reports where the motor's spinning magnet is, so the electronics know exactly when to deliver each pulse of power. The team's trick is to calculate that position from signals the motor controller already produces, cutting the required sensors down to a few voltage and current readings.

Why should you care? Position sensors add cost, take up space, and are often the first thing to fail in hot, fast-spinning machines. Every part you remove is a part that can't break. High-speed motors like this one — 100,000 revolutions per minute, roughly 30 times faster than a car engine — already sit inside cordless vacuums, dental drills, air conditioners, and the cooling systems in data centers. Make them cheaper and tougher, and those products get lighter, quieter, and less expensive to build.

The team tested their approach on a small 100-watt prototype, about the power of a blender, built with a modern material called gallium nitride (a chip material that handles high speeds efficiently). Their math kept the magnet's position accurate to within 5 degrees, which is close enough to run smoothly at full speed. The paper was presented at ICEM 2026, a motor and drive engineering conference.

The catch: this is a lab result on a tiny motor. Scaling the technique up to big machines, and proving it survives years of real-world heat and vibration, is the hard part that comes next. So don't expect a redesign of your vacuum cleaner tomorrow — but do expect motor makers to pay attention.