Peratech


When research engineer  David Lussey discovered a material that was able to control the flow of electricity he didn't immediately appreciate the commercial implications 

Best practice in: 	Business process improvement
Sector: 		      Electronics
Size of firm: 		12
Location: 		      Darlington
Website: 		www.peratech.co.uk

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Objectives

Imagine if you didn't have to deal with buttons or dials every time you used an electric device - instead, you just squeezed the object itself. Or what if you could run electricity through fabric instead of wires and sew the controls into your clothing? The technology exists - Peratech has invented it, or rather discovered it. The eureka moment came when research engineer David Lussey was looking for an adhesive that would conduct electricity. What he got was one of those rare and fortunate accidents - he discovered a material that could transform itself from a conductor to an insulator and back again, depending on whether it was touched. 


Solution

The commercial implications took a while to register. "It happened at my home lab," says Lussey. "The substance showed unusual electrical activities but I didn't realise what I had was special straightaway. It wasn't so much a eureka moment as a eureka fortnight."

Lussey named the substance Quantum Tunnelling Composite (QTC), but he only had the vaguest idea as to what the commercial applications might be. "I had enough of a science background to know QTC could be used for controlling the flow of electricity in electronics, but I knew I needed help finding uses," he explains.

"I knew I had to sit down with people who understood design and find ways of making the technology usable. It was just too hard to go straight to the manufacturers." Lussey soon came to see design was the fundamental medium for selling QTC to industry and so Peratech turned to professional design agencies.


Results

The result was more than 80 patents for QTC and a workable manufacturing process. The leap from technology to design was essential, if only to show potential customers what QTC was capable of. One prototype which successfully demonstrated QTC capabilities was a power drill with QTC built into the surface of the handle, allowing users to control the speed of the drill simply by squeezing the handle. The drill did its job in opening up QTC to a number of potential new markets. 

Recently, Peratech provided NASA with QTC finger sensors to enable NASA's robots to have human-like touch capability.


As Peratech works with more partners and design consultancies, further applications are likely to be found. For Peratech this is only the start.

Challenges
Rather than being hindered by the science behind QTC, Lussey has found that designers have helped advance the technology. "Designers like to play with it, cut it up and put it into things. They see the possibilities. We want them to take up the patents and sell their designs to manufacturers. They benefit from getting their design made into a product and we benefit by selling QTC to their clients. In a way they market QTC for us."

The last word
David Lussey attributes Peratech's success to close collaboration with designers. "I used to think design meant shape. Now I know it's a first principle, design is fundamental to the product."