Motor controller

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9139294-B2
Application number	US-88538806-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 1, 2006
Priority date	Mar 1, 2005
Publication date	Sep 22, 2015
Grant date	Sep 22, 2015

Abstract

This application describes the software invented to control a dual electric motor system. The dual electric motor system is a Chorus Motor system applied to electric drive for aircraft taxi. The software uses closed-loop control together with several other control laws to operate the motors. Knowledge of the current operating state of the motors, together with knowledge of the commands given to taxi forward, taxi in reverse, or brake in reverse, is used to configure the motors to optimal operating parameters. The software architecture is described along with the pilot interface and many details of software implementation.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An aircraft motor control system for controlling a drive motor associated with at least one aircraft nose wheel to drive the aircraft independently on the ground in a selected forward or reverse direction without the use of the aircraft main engines in accordance with one or more operational states, wherein said motor control system comprises:
(a) at least one electrically powered drive motor drivingly housed within at least one aircraft nose wheel, said drive motor including a stator-rotor combination configured to generate a requested nose wheel torque or speed in response to one or more aircraft operational states to drive said nose wheel, and drive electronics electronically connected to said stator-rotor combination;
(b) a pilot interface operationally connected to said at least one electrically powered drive motor comprising a plurality of input devices and a plurality of notification devices designed to overlap with said input devices, each of said input devices being configured to actuate a power command and to move the aircraft at a drive motor torque in a selected direction as required by a selected aircraft operational states;
(c) a plurality of sensors in connection with said input devices, said at least one nose wheel, and said at least one electrically powered drive motor adapted to provide information relating to said selected aircraft operational state;
(d) hardware drivers electronically connected to said input devices and said sensors and adapted to calibrate power commands and sensor information to produce input device variables relating to said selected aircraft operational state;
(e) control loop means electronically connected to said hardware drivers, said sensors, and said input devices, wherein said control loop means comprises state change law means for defining state change laws for said input device variables, system state means for applying the state change laws to determine an aircraft nose wheel operational state, first parameter filter limit law (PFLL) means for filtering selected ones of said input device variables according to a first set of out-of-bounds conditions, first calculation means to determine a torque or speed request to apply to the drive motor in accordance with filtered selected input device variables, second parameter filter limit law (PFLL) means for filtering a requested torque or speed, second calculation means to determine a motor drive frequency and motor voltage to produce the filtered requested torque or speed, motor command generator means for producing lower level commands to drive the drive motor based on a determined motor drive frequency and motor voltage corresponding to the filtered requested torque or speed, and motor commander means for formatting said lower level commands for said drive motor; and
(f) drive electronics connecting said input devices, said notification devices, said sensors, said hardware drivers, said control loop means, and said drive motor adapted to supply electric power to the stator-rotor combination of said drive motor in accordance with said lower level commands to move said aircraft nose wheels at said requested torque or speed in accordance with said selected aircraft operational state.

2. The aircraft motor control system described in claim 1 , wherein said system comprises two aircraft nose wheels and two electrically powered drive motors, and each of said drive motors is drivingly connected to one of said two aircraft nose wheels, and further comprising a torque splitter adapted to divide the requested torque and share the requested torque between each said drive motor in each of said two aircraft nose wheels.

3. The aircraft motor control system described in claim 2 , wherein said input devices comprise means for registering a requested nose wheel steer angle, and said system further comprises means to distribute the requested torque between the two nose wheel drive motors according to the requested steer angle.

4. A motor control system that uses algorithms and control laws to operate an aircraft wheel-mounted drive motor to allow an aircraft to taxi without main engines or a tug, said system comprising, in an open or closed control loop:
a. two drive motors, each said motor comprising a mesh connected high phase order electric motor with a stator-rotor combination capable of high torque output housed within aircraft wheels to apply torque to drive to said aircraft wheels to move a taxiing an aircraft;
b. a plurality of input devices and sensors designed to input data or provide data to be processed to request a desired torque or speed to drive said drive motors during taxi;
c. a hardware driver designed to receive data to be processed from said input devices and to generate input variables relating to operation of said drive motors;
d. a supply of stored data comprising information received from said hardware driver relating to operating parameters of each of said drive motors;
e. an arrangement of algorithms comprising look-up tables and control laws adapted to process said input variables and said supply of stored data in accordance with selected control laws to determine a voltage and drive frequency required to operate each of the drive motors at said requested desired torque or speed or at a torque or speed determined by processing said input variables and said supply of stored data;
f. a motor command generator designed to process voltage and drive frequency data to produce motor commands corresponding to said requested desired torque or speed and to communicate said motor commands to each of said drive motors through a motor commander adapted to format and communicate said motor commands to each of said drive motors to operate said drive motors at said requested desired torque or speed to move a taxiing aircraft; and
g. a logger adapted to receive and maintain updated information relating to operation of said system.

5. The system of claim 4 , further comprising, in a closed control loop, at least one proportional integral (PI) controller designed to process torque input to said hardware driver, wherein said at least one proportional integral (PI) controller is a torque proportional integral (PI) controller.

6. The control system of claim 5 wherein said one or more PI controllers are speed PI controllers.

7. The system of claim 4 , further including, in a closed control loop, a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller.

8. The system of claim 4 , wherein said sensors are selected from the group consisting of: temperature of motor windings sensors, rotor position sensors, DC rail voltage sensors, strut torque sensors, current sensors, speed sensors, and steering angle sensors.

9. The system of claim 4 , wherein each said stator-rotor combinations is housed within each of said nose wheels to drive each of said nose wheels in said taxiing aircraft, and each stator-rotor combination is supplied with drive electronics, wherein said motor command generator provides a set of lower level commands for each stator-rotor combination.

10. The system of claim 4 , wherein said drive motor further comprises a high phase order electric motor comprising more than three different phases with mesh connected windings, and wherein said system further comprises a harmonics optimizer for determining a harmonic drive frequency based on a requested torque.

11. The system of claim 4 , wherein said data to be processed requests a desired torque required to move a taxiing aircraft, and said system further comprises torque sharing software designed to output the same torque to each drive motor during taxi.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein said data to be processed inc

Assignees

• Bayer Janice Ilene
• Borealis Tech Ltd

Inventors

• Bayer Janice Ilene

Classifications

• B64C25/405 Primary

  Powered wheels, e.g. for taxing · CPC title

• Y02T50/823

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic

• G05D1/02

  Control of position or course in two dimensions · CPC title

• B64C25/50 Primary

  Steerable undercarriages; Shimmy-damping · CPC title

• Y02T50/82

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic