Hybrid architecture and method for absolute position to quadrature synthesis for motion detection and control

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9477221-B1
Application number	US-201514728963-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Jun 2, 2015
Priority date	Jun 2, 2015
Publication date	Oct 25, 2016
Grant date	Oct 25, 2016

Abstract

A motor-based position system includes one or more motors having a rotor. The system further includes a motor controller. The motor controller is communicatively coupled to each of the motors. The system further includes one or more encoders configured to detect an absolute position of each motor and one or more devices configured to collect inertial data. The system further includes a processing device coupled to the motor controller, one or more encoders and one or more devices. The processing device is configured to receive signals indicative of motors' absolute position from the encoders and configured to convert the received encoder signals into a format understood by the motor controller. The processing device is further configured to send the converted signals to the motor controller with low latency and configured to combine the received encoder signals with the inertial data to generate more accurate positional information.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A motor control system, the system comprising:
one or more motors having a rotor;
a motor controller for controlling operation of the one or more motors, wherein the motor controller is communicatively coupled to each of the one or more motors;
one or more encoders configured to detect an absolute position of the one or more motors; and
a processing device for exchanging data related to the operation of the one or more motors with the motor controller, the processing device includes a state vector memory for storing inertial data and positional information, the state vector memory comprising a plurality of addressable memory locations and a state vector memory management interface communicatively coupled to the state vector memory, the state vector management interface configured to provide read and write control to the state vector memory, wherein the processing device is configured to:
receive signals indicative of absolute positions of the one or more motors from the one or more encoders;
convert the received encoder signals into a format understood by the motor controller; and
send the converted signals to the motor controller.

2. The motor control system of claim 1 , wherein the converted signals comprise quadrature signals.

3. The motor control system of claim 2 , wherein the converted signals comprise differential pulse signals.

4. The motor control system of claim 2 , wherein the conversion of the received encoder signals into the quadrature signals is performed concurrently by a plurality of the hardware processing units instantiated on the processing device.

5. The motor control system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to calculate a relative velocity of the corresponding motor based on one or more previously received encoder signals and based on the time elapsed since the previous encoder signals were received.

6. The motor control system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to detect errors based on the signals indicative of absolute positions of the one or more motors and based on one or more previously received encoder signals.

7. The motor control system of claim 1 , wherein the processing device comprises at least one of an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) and a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).

8. The motor control system of claim 1 , wherein the signals indicative of absolute positions comprise digital pulse signals generated by the one or more absolute encoders having different resolutions.

9. The motor control system of claim 1 , wherein the motor controller is configured to operate the one or more motors in a substantially constant torque mode.

10. A motor-based multi-axis position system, the system comprising:
one or more motors having a rotor;
a motor controller for controlling operation of the one or more motors, wherein the motor controller is communicatively coupled to each of the one or more motors;
one or more encoders configured to detect an absolute position of the one or more motors;
one or more devices configured to collect inertial data; and
a processing device coupled to the motor controller, one or more controllers and one or more devices, wherein the processor is configured to:
receive signals indicative of absolute positions of the one or more motors from the one or more encoders;
convert the received signals into a format understood by the motor controller;
send the converted signals to the motor controller; and
combine the received signals with the collected inertial data to generate positional information.

11. The motor-based position system of claim 10 , wherein the processing device is configured to combine the received signals with the inertial data using a Kalman filter.

12. The motor-based position system of claim 10 , wherein the processing device comprises at least one of an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) and a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and wherein the combination of the received signals with the inertial data is performed concurrently by a plurality of the hardware processing units instantiated on the processing device.

13. The motor-based position system of claim 10 , wherein the one or more motors comprise a multi-axis motor assembly.

14. The motor-based position system of claim 10 , wherein the one or more devices configured to collect inertial data comprise at least one of an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a GPS component.

Assignees

• Goodrich Corp

Inventors

• Rencs Erik V
• Ramsey Scott W

Classifications

• G05B23/00

  Testing or monitoring of control systems or parts thereof (monitoring of program-control systems G05B19/048, G05B19/406) · CPC title

• H02P6/001

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G05B21/02 Primary

  electric · CPC title

• H02P23/0077 Primary

  Characterised by the use of a particular software algorithm · CPC title

• H02P23/12

  Observer control, e.g. using Luenberger observers or Kalman filters · CPC title