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US 12,592,555 B2Granted
Active turn off control gate driver for solid state circuit breaker
AssigneeHamilton Sundstrand Corporation
InventorsJeffrey Ewanchuk, Baljit Riar, Xin Wu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of open-loop fault control of a solid state circuit breaker includes the steps of populating a lookup table with predetermined current and temperature values and corresponding interrupt times, measuring a temperature of the solid state circuit breaker, measuring an electrical current passing through the solid state circuit breaker, estimating interrupt time from the lookup table based on the measured temperature and current values, determining to initiate a shutoff of the solid state circuit breaker based on the estimated interrupt time, and initiating a shutoff process of the solid state circuit breaker.
Claims21
A method of open-loop fault control of a solid state circuit breaker, comprising:
- populating a lookup table with predetermined current and temperature values and corresponding interrupt times;
- measuring a temperature of the solid state circuit breaker;
- measuring an electrical current passing through the solid state circuit breaker;
- estimating an interrupt time from the lookup table based on the measured temperature and current values;
- determining to initiate a shutoff of the solid state circuit breaker based on the estimated interrupt time;
- and
- initiating a shutoff process of the solid state circuit breaker, the shutoff process comprising engaging and disengaging resistive elements, wherein disengaging the resistive elements comprises electrically disengaging one of at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements from a gate of the solid state circuit breaker after a predetermined time in order to minimize severity of an overvoltage condition of the solid state circuit breaker, the predetermined time equal to the estimated interrupt time.
4 more elements
A solid state circuit breaker with open-loop control system comprising:
- a gate-controlled solid state switch;
- a temperature sensor in thermal conduction with the gate-controlled solid state switch and configured to output a temperature-dependent electrical signal;
- a current sensor configured to detect current passing through the gate-controlled solid state switch and configured to output a current-dependent electrical signal;
- a gate driver circuit configured to receive one or more control signals and to control a gate voltage of the gate-controlled solid state switch;
- at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements;
- a gate driver controller configured to:
- produce the one or more control signals;
- provide the one or more control signals to the gate driver circuit;
- receive the temperature-dependent electrical signal and the current-dependent electrical signal;
- and
- initiate a shutoff process of the solid state circuit breaker by engaging and disengaging the at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements based on an estimated interrupt time, wherein disengaging the at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements comprises electrically disengaging one of the at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements from the gate-controlled solid state switch after a predetermined time in order to minimize severity of an overvoltage condition of the solid state circuit breaker, the predetermined time equal to the estimated interrupt time;
- and
- one or more lookup tables stored within a memory of the gate driver controller, the one or more lookup tables populated with temperature and current values corresponding to interrupt times of the gate-controlled solid state switch.
10 more elements
A solid state circuit breaker comprising:
- a gate-controlled solid state switch;
- a temperature sensor in thermal conduction with the gate-controlled solid state switch and configured to output a temperature-dependent electrical signal;
- a current sensor configured to detect current passing through the gate-controlled solid state switch and to output a current-dependent electrical signal;
- a gate driver circuit configured to receive one or more control signals and to control a gate voltage of the gate-controlled solid state switch;
- at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements;
- a gate driver controller configured to:
- produce the one or more control signals;
- provide the one or more control signals to the gate driver circuit;
- receive the temperature-dependent electrical signal and the current-dependent electrical signal;
- and
- initiate a shutoff of the solid state circuit breaker by engaging and disengaging the at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements, wherein disengaging the at least two separately controllable turn-off resistive elements comprises electrically disengaging one of the at least two separately controllable resistive elements from the gate-controlled solid state switch after a predetermined time in order to minimize severity of an overvoltage condition of the solid state circuit breaker;
- and
- one or more lookup tables stored within a memory of the gate driver controller, the one or more lookup tables populated with temperature and current values corresponding to interrupt times of the gate-controlled solid state switch;
- wherein the gate driver controller is configured to initiate the shutoff of the solid state circuit breaker using an estimated interrupt time from the one or more lookup tables, the estimated interrupt time based on the temperature-dependent electrical signal and the current-dependent electrical signal;
- and
- wherein the predetermined time is equal to the estimated interrupt time.
13 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.