Electric vehicle controller

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9975433-B2
Application number	US-201415502888-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 25, 2014
Priority date	Aug 25, 2014
Publication date	May 22, 2018
Grant date	May 22, 2018

Abstract

An electric vehicle controller includes an inverter that drives a motor by receiving power supplied from an overhead line, a brake chopper circuit that includes a switching device and a braking resistor and is connected in parallel with the inverter, a voltage detector that detects a bus voltage applied to DC buses, and a control unit that performs power consumption control of causing the braking resistor to consume regenerative power supplied from the motor and overvoltage suppression control of suppressing the bus voltage from being excessive. The control unit controls the switching device such that a second duty ratio used at the time of performing the overvoltage suppression control is lower than a first duty ratio used at the time of performing the power consumption control.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An electric vehicle controller comprising:
an inverter to drive a motor by receiving power supplied via a line breaker and a DC bus;
a power consumption circuit to be connected in parallel with the inverter while including a switching device and a power consumption resistor connected in series with the switching device;
a voltage detector to detect a bus voltage applied to the DC bus; and
a control unit to perform power consumption control that causes the power consumption resistor to consume regenerative power supplied from the motor and overvoltage suppression control that suppresses the bus voltage from being excessive, wherein
the control unit controls the switching device in order for a second duty ratio used at the time of performing the overvoltage suppression control to be lower than a first duty ratio used at the time of performing the power consumption control.

2. The electric vehicle controller according to claim 1 , wherein
the control unit includes a first control system to perform the power consumption control and a second control system to perform the overvoltage suppression control,
the control unit starts an operation of the first control system when the bus voltage is higher than or equal to a first determination value and starts an operation of the second control system when the bus voltage is higher than or equal to a second determination value that is larger than the first determination value, and
the operation of the second control system is prioritized when the first control system and the second control system are operated at the same time.

3. The electric vehicle controller according to claim 2 , wherein
the second control system receives information to open or close the line breaker, and
the second control system calculates a third duty ratio larger than the first duty ratio when acknowledging the information to open or close the line breaker and controls the switching device according to the third duty ratio.

4. The electric vehicle controller according to claim 3 , wherein the third duty ratio equals 100%.

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Electric Corp

Inventors

• Fujiwara Hiroshi
• Yamamoto Yuri
• Hirayama Yu

Classifications

• B60L7/08

  Controlling the braking effect (B60L7/04, B60L7/06 take precedence) · CPC title

• B60L2240/526

  Operating parameters · CPC title

• B60L3/04 Primary

  Cutting off the power supply under fault conditions (protective devices and circuit arrangements in general H01H; H02H) · CPC title

• B60L7/02

  Dynamic electric resistor braking (B60L7/22 takes precedence) · CPC title

• B60L15/10

  for automatic control superimposed on human control to limit the acceleration of the vehicle, e.g. to prevent excessive motor current (electric devices for safety purposes B60L3/00) · CPC title