Donut Defence offers modular platform for electric mobility solutions

In-wheel Donut Motor (Photo: Donut Defence)

Donut Defence is a designer and developer of electric mobility solutions for military applications.

In addition to the military work, the company tech can be applied to a series of other sectors, including passenger vehicles, commercial trucks and aerospace projects.

Key to the offering is the Donut Platform, which comprises each of the company’s technology developments.

These include the Donut Motor; developed sister company Donut Labs, the motor can deliver ‘limitless’ torque and power – more specifically, as much torque and power as the project requires.

For road vehicles, the in-hub motor offers a series of advantages. It removes unsprung weight from the vehicle, while opening up onboard space. In addition, the direct drive system eliminates the need for wear parts such as the transmission, helping to cut costs and improve long-term reliability.

In addition, the direct drive is more efficient, helping to maximise vehicle range or support a smaller battery pack.

The direct drive can be controlled with millisecond efficiency, allowing for precise adjustments in real time. This offers improvements across steering accuracy, stability and traction control functions.

Together with the battery, brain (ECU) and related software, the modular platform is scalable to produce vehicles of any size. It has been put forward the platform could be used to produce a rover for interplanetary exploration.

Donut Motor as applied to a heavy-duty truck tractor (Photo: Donut Defence)

Michael Waksman, who was recently appointed CEO at Donut Defence, said: “After years of experience in the defense sector and witnessing ongoing discussions about transformation, I see a clear and growing demand for innovative technologies like ours.

“This is an incredibly exciting opportunity. With the strength of our courageous team and the support of our current and future customers, I’m confident we can drive real change and revolutionize the defense industry.”

Supported by the flexible modularity of the Donut Platform, using the same components to develop a given platform solution can reduce development costs by up to 90%.

Peter Batten, CEO of Australian company Hyper Q Aerospace, commented: ““Our goal is to develop one of the fastest electric helicopters in the world and to achieve that, we need next-generation technological solutions.

“We have been searching for a suitable motor over the past five years, exploring several different options, but none met our needs. Finally, and fortunately, we discovered the solutions developed by Donut Lab, which have enabled and even accelerated the design work for our entirely new type of helicopter.”