US 12,339,646 B2Granted

State machine motor controller

AssigneeMicrochip Technology Incorporated

InventorRadhakrishna Pani

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Abstract

A state machine motor controller (SMMC) interface comprises a plurality of states which defines a unique set of poles/motor phase/phases energized. Digital sensors capture the start of overlap of rotor poles with stator poles. The state change occurs when a rotor pole starts overlapping with a stator pole. The number of states depends on the number of phases and the design of the motor. The SMMC has up to four inputs to accept rotational information from digital sensors and can control motors having up to 16 states. A sequencer is used to keep track of state changes and provides a next state depending on forward/reverse direction setting and braking setting. A counter provides rotational speed based upon the number of clock pulses per time period for a state change. The sequencer checks for a faulty sensor(s) and generates a fault interrupt therefrom.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A state machine motor controller interface, comprising:

an edge detector having a plurality of first inputs and a plurality of first outputs,
wherein each of the plurality of first inputs is adapted for coupling to a respective one of a plurality of position sensors whereby each of the plurality of position sensors indicates a different motor rotor angle range,
when a first input receives a sensor output from an associated position sensor, a state thereof is determined based upon a sensor output logic value, wherein each state is defined by a logic value stored in a register and compared with the sensor output logic value, and
wherein one of the plurality of first outputs provides the state and another one of the plurality of first outputs provides a state change pulse output;
a sequencer comprising
a state input coupled to the state output from the edge detector,
a state change pulse input coupled to the state change pulse output from the edge detector,
a valid state change event/interrupt output, and
a plurality of definition registers for defining expected states,
comparison logic for validating the state received from the edge detector with an associated one of the expected states,
a next expected state is updated if the received state is valid before an overflow output is received from a counter and a valid state change event/interrupt is generated, and if the received state is not valid, then until a next counter overflow condition the next expected state is not updated and a fault interrupt is generated;
the counter having a clock input coupled to a clock and a count value output,
wherein the counter increments a count value for a clock pulse received until a valid state pulse is received from the sequencer,
whereby the count value will be stored in a count register of the counter and the count value of the counter will be reset to zero, and
if the count value exceeds a maximum count then the overflow output will be generated.

12 more elements

A state machine motor controller comprising:

a processor;
a non-transitory storage medium comprising a set of computer readable instructions stored in the non-transitory storage medium and when executed by the processor configured to control the controller to:
calculate rotor states based on user-defined parameters and store rotor states in a plurality of definition registers for defining expected rotor states;
determine an initial rotor state based on rotor position input data;
store a next rotor state in a plurality of definition registers for defining next rotor states;
store an expected rotor state in the plurality of definition registers for defining expected rotor states;
detect changes in rotor state based on the rotor position input data;
validate a rotor state as an expected rotor state and reset a counter;
determine the next rotor state based on the user-defined parameters and the expected rotor state stored in the plurality of definition registers for defining expected rotor states and load the next rotor state in one of the plurality of registers for defining expected rotor states;
and
update the expected rotor state with the next rotor state.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 17/874,407Filed 27 Jul 2022
Priority: IN 20211104719018 Oct 2021
Published: US 2023/0121985 A120 Apr 2023
Granted: 24 Jun 2025
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

G05B 19/4155
Numerical control [NC], i.e. automatically operating machines, in particular machine tools, e.g. in a manufacturing environment, so as to…
H02P 25/08
Characterised by the kind of motor: reluctance motors
G05B 2219/41329
Servomotor, servo controller till figures: dC motor
G05B
Control or regulating systems in general