In recent years, microfabrication needs are rapidly increasing in secondary batteries, fuel cells, etc. for smartphones and automobiles to be converted to electronics. For these applications, we have commercialized the first 500W CW (continuous wave) air-cooled single mode fiber laser in Japan. By extending proprietary technologies cultivated in high power fiber laser development to air-cooled fiber lasers, this product also improves the maximum output to 300 W from the previous 300 W while also greatly enhancing the anti-reflection performance I will. This enables direct irradiation of metals with high reflectivity such as aluminum alloys and realizes high penetration depth welding and fine cutting process at high speed due to high convergence of single mode fiber laser.

In the world where IoT advances, it is expected that many sensing systems will be used in various places in the future. As a way to drive these many sensor devices, environmentally friendly energy harvesting (environmental power generation) is expected that does not require waste of power supply work and battery replacement, no waste, and so on. We have further reduced the size and thickness of DSC, which demonstrates excellent power generation characteristics even under low-light environment where direct sunlight can not be obtained as this energy harvesting device, in line with miniaturization of sensor equipment. As a result, we have developed a 2.5 mm thick DSC module for energy harvesting, which has about 1.2 times the power generation effective area and about half the thickness compared with conventional products. DSC will contribute to the development of an environmentally friendly society, such as fully batteryless IoT sensor equipment and ZEB (net, zero, energy, building) realization.

At the 21st Meeting of the Conference of Parties of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21), consideration for the environment has become increasingly important internationally, such as the adoption of the Paris Agreement including reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We are working on the development of magnetic refrigeration technology applied to the next-generation refrigerator which is highly efficient and environmentally friendly, replacing the conventional vapor compression type refrigerator using alternative CFC with high global warming potential (GWP). Magnetic refrigeration utilizes a phenomenon (magnetocaloric effect) in which a magnetic working substance (MCM) generates heat and absorbs in accordance with the application / removal of a magnetic field, (1) refrigerant with zero GWP can be used, (2) overwhelmingly high efficiency , There is a big feature. Although MCM was grainy and difficult to wire, MCM succeeded in making wire by using original wire drawing technology, and confirmed that the wire exhibits greater refrigerating capacity than granular in high speed refrigeration cycle did. This result was also noticed at Thermag VII of the International Society of September 2016, and in the future we will continue to develop for the practical application of the world's first magnetic refrigeration air conditioner.

Seat sensors are used to judge seat conditions for collision safety and driving support of automobiles, but we developed a new seating sensor based on a completely different concept from conventional seating sensors. The new seating sensor is of the type installed on a spring (S spring) disposed under the seat cushioning material of the seat, receives the load of the occupant on the entire seat, and the distributed load is transmitted to the back side of the seat It will be. By developing a structure that efficiently transmits the distributed load to the sensor, it has achieved miniaturization compared with the conventional structure. Also, since the conventional seating sensor installed on the seat surface is affected by the shape of the surface of the seat, it was difficult to share the seating sensor between the vehicle type and the seat grade, but the new seated sensor can be used in common . In addition, due to the installation method on the spring on the back of the seat, the installation workability has also improved considerably compared with the conventional seating sensor.